Our hens arrived nearly a week ago. They came with this mobile coop called a chicken tractor. It was made last year by a group of Eagle Scouts.
It's really a cool design. It allows us to pick up the whole thing at the end of the day and move it a few feet onto fresh mulch. Then we just rake the spot where they were. The enclosed part of the coop has a little door that we can pull shut and open with a string that hangs on the outside (you can see it attached to that little block). When the sun goes down, the hens go inside and we sneak out and pull the door shut. In the morning, Charlie and the kids come down right when they wake up and pull the string to let them out into the main part of the tractor.
They have a food dish in the enclosed part and a hanging water dish, too. And they love to eat all sorts of kitchen scraps - strawberry hulls have been a big hit, as was moldy string cheese. They can't eat citrus, potato peels, and, of course, chicken (ahhh!!!).
And they are great guests. They coo very quietly when you come outside to see them and are not at all bothered by the neighbor's poodles.
And the very best part? They lay eggs, of course. This morning I had an egg for breakfast that was still warm, right from the backyard. Lovely. If you're not quick, they will step on their eggs and break them, though. The one thing our tractor doesn't have is a box for them to lay in. They often lay right on the mulch and this leads to broken eggs sometimes.
They go back to the farm the first week of July and I am afraid it will be a tearful goodbye. We just subscribed to Backyard Poultry magazine. Check back in March and perhaps we'll have two little hatchlings and a permanent coop. That would be pretty cool.
