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Even though the chicks are only about a week old and are in a box in our living  room we are already working on their next residence. Our farm came with a few existing chicken real-estate options, but as we started to clean them out we discovered some problems.Option #1

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This chicken house option is very spacious and comes with a rotting floor, over grown yard, collapsing fence, and is way too far from the farmhouse. All of these things make chicken house option #1 a predators dream. The chickens would all be dead in a year.

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Option #2

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This chicken house option is more of a chicken cottage and features a dirt floor, lots of shade, an overgrown yard, a sagging fence, and it is also too far away from the farmhouse. I think that although this chicken house is in a little better condition, it is too small for 13 chickens. It is probably not predator proof enough either.

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Option #3

Use parts of both chicken houses to build a new one. Then we can choose the location, the size, and design it to be more attractive looking and predator proof . Michael is not at all excited about this option because it will be a lot of work. But I am pretty sure if we want our chickens to be healthy, happy, and safe, this is our best option. We have some time to think about it though, since the chicks won’t be able to be unsupervised for a few months.