Other chickens would choose to lay eggs in broad daylight — on the tractor seat, in the old Red Flyer wagon, on the work table. Don’t ask me their logic, I don’t understand. But I do understand that it creates problems — like eggs rolling off and breaking and chickens eating their eggs because they’re right there in front of them. Basically, less eggs for us.

Other chickens laid eggs in the grass, in little dirt caves, and elsewhere we probably haven’t found. Last fall, one hen laid a clutch in a woodpile in the calf’s pasture (unbeknownst to us). We found out what she’d been up to the day she walked up on the porch followed by eight chicks. This was a delight, of course, but proved to us that we did not have a handle on our eggs.

So… making nest boxes that our chickens would actually want to use sounded like a good idea. Keep all our eggs? Yes, that’s the idea.

Saturday, Jeff and Mikah set out to make nesting boxes — or rather, one big nesting box with plenty of room. The goals were clear: 1) doable in a day, 2) very simple yet works, and 3) built out of things we already have. Thus, our nest box/boxes probably look nothing like any official plans you’ve ever seen. But do they work? Keep reading.

The base: layers of pallets on piers. Plywood between the layers to provide a base for the top pallet, whose spaces would be the nests. This is in one bay of our barn. Another bay is where they roost at night, coming and going freely.

Designing the sides and cutting out doors for the chickens to enter.

The sides are in place, as well as a door on three of the four sides.

This is the top. They cut in half for easy handling.

The girls filled the bottom with hay to make it cozy. Our chickens love hay — most of our eggs to date have been laid in the hay.

Putting the top on. The halves can be easily lifted to check for eggs. They aren’t tacked down at all, just laid on top.

A space between the side walls and top so the boxes have good airflow. They stacked up logs in front of each doorway so the chickens could get in.

A chicken came to see what was up.

The first day, one egg was laid in the new location. Yesterday (Monday), twelve eggs were laid inside. Today, we’ve found three in there. Clearly, there are up and downs. But we’re pretty encouraged.

We figured we needed a hay rack, because otherwise the goats would eat their (expensive) alfalfa hay in a big bin in the center of the barn. Most of it would end up on the floor.

After Jeff thought awhile, he decided to part ways from the plans and do it his own way.

We had cattle panels along one wall of the barn anyway – the wall doesn’t go all the way to the ground yet. We ran out of time to build up the floor of the barn this season, so the cattle panels block the hole. We also would hook the goats up to this “wall” for their feeding stations.

Jeff put up another row of cattle panels and t-posts just inside the current wall of panels. A fence within a fence. He put plywood leaning from the bottom of the inner fence to the top of the outer fence. And we put the hay between the plywood and the inner fence. The goats reach through the cattle panel holes to get the hay. They can’t waste so much of it because the hay pretty much stays put.

Now we hook the goats up to the inner fence – just for their supplemental grain feeding, not when they’re eating free choice hay.

Hallelujah!

I didn’t take pictures of everything we did, but here’s a rundown: finish siding the back, add corner trim and door trim, stack the lumber inside, make finishing connections for the water system, fill trenches with dirt, create animal stalls, move feed and milking stand to new barn, move fences, create corridor for animals to enter and exit, add gate to keep animals from leaving the wrong way and down the driveway, dirt work to prevent water running into the barn, and turn on the new water system.

Click on any picture for a larger view.

We felt so good last night, even though it was late when we came in. Jeff had taken most of yesterday (Monday) off so we could finish. We hoped we would. It was the last sunny day. God worked it out – helped us finish. We got the animals moved in the nick of time – as last night it started raining!

Last weekend, even though it was rainy and muddy, we got much done.

On Friday, our siding arrived. It is not a perfect color match. We weren’t too concerned about matching the color. This is what was available to us, so it is what we got.

On Saturday, in the rain, Jeff and the kids finished framing most of the pole barn.

On Sunday, our friend Joe and his family came over. Joe and Jeff put the mud skirts up, along with the siding on the two long sides and half the front. I like the color block look. What concerns us is that should we sell our property someday, we hope people won’t be turned away by the colors.

On Monday, Jeff took the day off work. The weather turned nice. He and I put the siding up on the rest of the front. We framed the back side of the barn.

On Tuesday, Jeff took another day off work. He went back over the three sided-sides and screwed in all the remaining screws. We hoped to be able to side the back, but we didn’t get to it.

The pictures don’t show the finished front. We added some trim around the doorway to finish the metal edges. It really looks nice. We like it.

This coming weekend should be dry. We are going to hang the siding on the remaining back side. I will help with this. We will also add all the trim to the four corners. Then Jeff plans on doing tractor work – bringing in dirt to make the ground level inside. He also wants to create the stalls in the barn for the animals, milking area, feed storage, shop, etc. We’ll have to move fences, too, in order for the animals to be able to get in and out of the barn in their own territory (not ours!).

He also wants to turn “on” the new water system from the storage tank. He probably won’t get to hooking up the other circuit – from the well to the storage tank. But we can hope.

This is amazing. We’ve never done a project like this. It has been fun, challenging, and fulfulling!

Jeff asked me to help him set posts on Saturday. And I really didn’t want to. What I expected would be hours of just holding up 16 foot posts turned into exactly that. About 4 hours of holding up posts. It was hard on the arms, let me tell you! But suprisingly, I enjoyed being outside working with him. It was a pretty nice day and it felt good to help with the project.

So, basically, this is what I did on Saturday.

This is the bed that Jeff made for the water storage tank. It shows one of the many reasons I love him – his style. Wood, wood, wood, wood, wood.

This video shows how Jeff placed the 2500 gallon water storage tank, part of our new barn project. It must be in before the walls can be added to the barn. What’s remarkable about this is that Jeff was stumped about how to lift the tank high enough to put it on the bed of sand. Mikah and Naomi came up with the solution to use the tractor from below (you’ll see it in stage 2 of the placement). The project took 2 days. Naomi was the videographer.

Saturday, we had friends over. The guys and kids worked on a burning brush pile. Even though Jeff had in mind three piles for burning, they only got to one of them. The monster pile (pictured) proved very difficult to start ablaze. It was totally covered with blackberry vines that had grown over it in the two years the pile sat waiting to be burned. All along, the goats have enjoyed eating the vines, but the pile was so tall that they couldn’t reach to keep up with all the growth. It was a wonderful day.

In making this space for them, we now have a set-up so the goats can be trained to behave during feeding times. My goodness, they get out of hand! So what we’re doing now is: the kids fill their containers and serve them from the other side of the cattle panel (where Jeff and Mikah are standing in the picture). The goats stick their heads through the panel to reach their food. At this point, only one goat a time eats and we require the rest to stay away from that goat’s bowl and behave in order to get their own food. The kids tell me that after two days of being strict with feedings, the most unruly goats are starting to behave. Perhaps soon they’ll all be docile? Wishful thinking? That is not to say they aren’t sweet. They are the sweetest, most wonderful farm animals. But when food is around, they take on another personality!

The goats and the cow are getting closer to each other now. The goats still don’t prefer Trouble (the cow) to be around, especially when he wants to play. No playing for them!

Today is a beautiful day. The temperature is mild; It is not pouring down rain as it has been for a week. A joyful, peaceful sight.