Lady in Red: A Woodland Chicken Coop with Charm to Spare - Gardenista
In a sunny woodland clearing with a backdrop of redwoods and ferns the chicken coop that Chiquita and Bob Woodard built in... Photography by Sylvia Linsteadt for Gardenista. ...their Mill Valley California garden for their feathered brood of four and growing has all the casual charm of their 1902 shingled farmhouse The chicken coop is down the hill from the house along a winding garden path. Her husband Bob built the 7 foot 6 inch wide by 13 foot long coop on top of half inch Hardwire Mesh Cloth 66 97... ...a roll from Home Depot to thwart raccoons skunks foxes coyotes bobcats and last but not least dogs from digging under it to get in The mesh walls and roof are secured with washers and screws spaced six inches apart along the studs. Bright red geraniums in the window box bloom almost year-round in the mild Northern California climate. Chiquita who owns Manhattan s Kingdom of Herbs in Chelsea Market in New York City gathers a basket of wild greens chickweed miner s lettuce cleavers... ...on her morning walks through the woods nasturtium from her garden and yesterday s lettuce from the kitchen to supplement the organic pellets she feeds the hens The 6-foot-6-inch height of the coop makes it comfortable to walk in, which makes cleaning, feeding and gathering eggs easier. Thanks to daily handling, the four hens (an Araucana, a Golden Laced Wyandotte, a Rhode Island Red, and a Buff Orpington) greet Chiquita with gentle pecks and soft clucking. To protect the chickens from the elements, Bob built solid walls and a roof (galvanized metal on top of plywood, painted green) over and around the dry feed and laying box area in the back of the coop. A coop with a view: a redbud tree blossoms a peck away from the airy walls. April, the Golden Laced Wyandotte (L), and May, the Araucana (R), hang out by the galvanized water and feed containers, which are suspended from metal chains attached to the ceiling so the hens can’t knock them over. The pale blue egg in the middle is a sandblasted glass decoy used to encourage the hens to lay eggs in the nest box. This little beauty will start laying chocolate brown eggs when she’s around four months old. After a couple of days to a week, the fence will be taken away at night when the hens are sleeping. The vintage egg scale dates from the 1940s. The woodland path leading down the hill from the house to the chicken coop is lined with the trunks of fallen trees from the property.