Reclaiming the Barn

As are the majority of barns around here ours was an old tobacco barn.

Since tobacco is not grown on the farm anymore several stalls were added in the barn as the previous owner had various animals over the years.

When we started losing chickens to a predator we decided to turn one of the enclosed stalls/rooms into the chicken coop.  You can read about it HERE.

Well, after almost two years of the chickens roaming the barn CountryBoy decided it was time to reclaim the barn for our use and for the day when we have other animals.

See, most of the youngest girls have decided that they would rather roost way up in the rafters rather than in the coop.

What that means is that they are unprotected from night time predators that may wander into the barn AND… while they are roosting up there they are pooping on everything down below.  Ew!  What a mess!

The plan is to enclose one of the open stalls at the back of the barn, cut a doorway in the backside of the barn that will open directly into the paddock and move the gate to the back of the barn.  This should stop the chickens from getting into the barn at all which should stop the young’uns from roosting in the rafters at night and pooping on everything down below.  sigh.

Our repurposed nest boxes are in another stall so they will have to be relocated or rebuilt in the new coop as well.

I’d love to be able to find an antique set of nest boxes but the few that I have come across have been a tad pricy for our wallets (if you know what I mean!).  Isn’t it funny how old, used, worn out, dented or chippy items are more expensive than new nowadays?!

As I was taking the above photos this girl proceeded to show me what she thought about having to wait for a nest box…

She eventually turned around but let me know she was not happy and she didn’t appreciate me documenting her frustration by snapping a photo!

She’s one of our youngest girls and lays beautiful green eggs.

This guy…

ol’ FuzzyFoot, has his hands, er feet, full trying to keep up with 33 girls.  He gave up a long time ago trying to get the  young’uns to roost in the coop at night.  Poor fella!

I think reclaiming the barn is a good idea and will give us more useable space to store items we salvage for future projects and the barn will be ready for whatever future animals we add to the farm.

Another part of his reclaiming the barn project is the space next to the barn.  We were storing some old wood flooring, various barn wood, scrap wood and lots of junk.  He also kept the tractor in there during the winter months and the old mower we use for the paddock.

We decided it would make a good equipment shed but the current setup required moving one thing to get to another.  It needed to be more open and accessible to be used as an equipment shed so he cut some openings in the side…

The center support poles also needed attention as they were rotting away…

While I have been at work he has been working hard to replace the rotten sections, re-stacking the wood we want to keep, sorting through the junk and getting it all organized. Talk about a job!

Today he graded the ground and was able to get the tractor attachments inside before the rain started…

We will use the wood that he cut away to enclose the stall that will become the new chicken coop making for a very thrifty barn reclaiming project.  Monies spent so far?  ZERO!  Just a lotta blood, sweat and tears.  OK, a little blood, a lotta sweat and, thankfully, no tears.  Ya can’t beat that!