Mycrazyhappylife : The new peepers!

Last month I was shopping at one of my favorite stores, Wilco. They have all of their plants and larger farm equipment behind the store in an area you can walk around in to look at it all. While I was looking for some blueberry plants I happen to see that they had a chicken coup just hanging out back there too. Of course I had to investigate more and find out what they were going to do with it. So I found an employee and asked him what the deal was with the coup, he told me it was a return and that they were just going to throw it away. Now I checked that thing out before i even sought out an employee to ask. It was a little bit rough but nothing that I couldn't fix! I really wanted that chicken coup, a free coup was going to give me the green light to get some chickens that I have been wanting since last year. So I asked the Wilco employee if I could have it, he said, "I don't know, let me go ask somebody." He came back and made all of my dreams come true!

The chicken coup was mine! All I had to do was get it home..... Of course I had driven my car. I had to go back to Bremerton to get the truck. This was not a problem for a free chicken coup. Back to Bremerton we go, I also pick up my mom for some lifting help, I was going to need it.

About two weeks before the chicken coup adventure Ron had decided that he wanted a canopy for the truck, Ok all well and fine I see that it could be useful, maybe, sometime, really never. The truck with the canopy on it wasn't tall enough to fit my new chicken coup into!!! Great now how was I getting this thing home? My mom and I are lifting and turning and trying to get it to fit in the back of the truck, Oh did I mention that it was about 80 degrees out? By the time we got it all arranged and in the truck we couldn't close the tailgate so I had to tie it in with some rope, but it's free, it's worth it, this is what I keep telling myself.

Now to get it home and unloaded, this proved to be much easier than the initial loading. the coup actually sat in the back yard for about two weeks before we started to put it together and fix the broken things and other minor issues. During this two weeks I was researching the type of chickens that I wanted to get. The coup isn't that big so I knew I couldn't go chicken crazy (although I pretty much have the chicken fever now!) I finally decided that I wanted Silkies for sure and an ameraucana or easter egger that lays blue-greenish eggs. I found a silkie breeder about an hour and a half away from where I lived and was going to drive there to get some babies but then I found another craigslist post for some babies that were a 20 minute drive away from me, yes! They lady was amazing we talked for at least a half hour and she was super willing to work with my crazy overnight work schedule.

We have now had our babies for almost two weeks and they are getting so big!! They love being in their coup and playing all day. I typed up a list of the food scraps that we could feed them and when I am cooking I think that it's so funny I have a bowl for our meal, a bowl for the chickens, and then the bowl that will go to the compost. They love the food scraps and it is such a nice treat for them. I recently bought them a wheatgrass plant too that they have been munching on, as well as sitting in! So I ordered some more seeds to grow my own plants for them.