Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Here at Big Dawg Farms…definitely the chicken(s.) It all started for us a few years with a visit to the whimsically named Chick Days at Murdocks. We returned home without chicks – yet – but resolved to build a coop.
First, we Googled coop designs. I vetoed the boys’ choice, which looked like a fort, complete with parapets and fake weaponry. (Okay, there was no weaponry. But had we chosen that design, the boys would have added some. Trust me.)
Prison camp for chickens? not on *my* farm. Happy hens lay many eggs. Detainees? not so much.
Then, I chose a simple coop design – and Ryc and his friend Leo took that design and super-sized it. Easy to lift lids to retrieve eggs from the nesting boxes. Removable roosting ledges for easy cleaning. It is, as we now call it, the Cadillac Coop. The Coop de Ville. Coop de Grace (Coop de Gross when it hasn’t be cleaned for awhile…)
Home, sweet posh home for our Big Dawg hens – we even have a heat lamp inside for those cold Colorado nights.
We went back to chick days, made innumerable puns about picking up chicks, and chose our first little ones.
Ryc certainly has a way with chicks. They follow him around like doting groupies.
Fast forward four or five months…and eggs began to appear. Yummy, pretty eggs.
We are blessed with an abundance of eggs every day at Big Dawg Farms.