Cheep… Cheep
Six leghorn chicks from Tractor Supply arrived on March 2, 2021. They’re now five weeks old and have transformed from yellow balls of fluff to miniature chickens. As a newbie chicken mom, I was excited to introduce the little ladies to their new digs in the chicken sled. There’s plenty of fresh grass and bugs to find and a nice heat lamp to keep them warm as the nights are cool and they’re still growing out their secondary feathers. Time flies when you’re young!
The chicken sled is a portable chicken house constructed from reclaimed parts of old farmyard and a few strategic timbers from Lowes. The new materials cost around $300 thanks to the increased lumber cost ($8 for a 2 x 4!)
We borrowed the design from our good neighbors, the Flippens, who excel in everything home grown and delicious. Brendan morticed the frames into two 6 x 6 runners (sleds), used scrap lumber for the frames, and some leftover faux slate ties for the roof. The wire came from our local Poultry Services (welded hardwire with 1/2 x 1 inch holes) and the siding from some trees cut on the farm back in the 1930s (give or take a decade). We found pieces of an old house door in the loft which Brendan repurposed with an extra knob and lock.
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All ready in three weekends!
In total, the sled is just over 12 feet, with nesting boxes taking up 5 feet and the roost 7 feet. The entire bottom is open to the ground for happy scratching. When the scratching gets down to bare earth, we’ll attach the cart with a rope to the two tow points and pull them to greener pasture. The ladies moved in April 3rd!
