Our Chicken Coup, 6th in the series

The property is horse property, but we are not horse people. We moved here from San Francisco (we're city folk, and fitting in nicely). I can ride a horse and I do all the time, because my neighbors have horses and need riders to help keep their horses exercised, so they ask us. It's all open range out here so you can ride through everybody's property for miles. The previous family had horses and did roping in the roping arena ( I'll show it in the last picture). Because we don't have horses, I turned one side of the old and rustic stables into a chicken coup. That blue tank on the left is our well, pretty good water but hard, although, it sure is better then city water! The stables look old and they are, we kinda like that! There are two stables with a tack room in the middle. I turned the left side into the coup, the right side I plan to house swine for pork. Our house is to the left, about one hundred feet.
Inside this stable is the hen house, nesting boxes on the left center. We have six egg layers. All the girls have the same name, Matilda, chosen by my neighbor. My neighbor says that she can identify the one she named Matilda, but they're all Matilda to me. Plenty of eggs for us! We're always giving eggs away to all our friends. Six eggs a day, I just can't eat that many! The feed store buys them from me too, three bucks a dozen, not bad! Thank goodness, I'm not counting on that for income!
They like their yard, it is snake, coyote and bird of prey proof. They get all the green waste from our kitchen that I'd normally throw out or compost, they love it and wait for me each morning to come and give them a treat. As far as composting goes, I pick up all their droppings and that makes great compost. The term 'chicken shit' now takes on a whole new meaning for me these days! I surrounded the whole coup in chicken wire and snake wire, dug the heavy snake wire into the ground two feet and anchored it with pressured treated wood (to stop coyotes from digging under. The pig pen will be to the right in this picture. Swine coming in September after our next trip. We also raise 'Broiler Chickens' Chickens that you raise for two months for eating. I try to keep the freezer filled so as to not buy store bought chicken. These chicks are three weeks old and growing fast! They live happy lives, when I clean their separated coup each day, they get to run around with the egg layers. I can't let them out with the egg layers all the time because they'll be pecked on, you've heard of the pecking order, well this is where it comes from. I do the butchering myself, it's not difficult except for time to do the killing, never easy! These chicks have names too, Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, Dinner, Dinner, Dinner and Dinner.

This is our roping arena, it's old and very rustic. We use it as a place to run Kody and Aleah during the summer months, when snakes are everywhere. It is so open you can see snakes on the open ground, and it serves as a parking lot when we host our winter bonfires or for pool parties. Our neighbors stables are right there ( the white building), they have really nice stables because they are horse people. Real Cowboys and Cowgirls, husband, wife, son and daughter.
Here's Kody, excited to run after his ball when there are no rabbits to chase. You can see his Boxer head with the Greyhound body. He's my funny little guy! Quite a dog!!!