by jpaul (bio)
Few things in life are as simple and enjoyable as having your four year-old son walk to the backyard every day to grab a couple fresh eggs just in time to fry them up for lunch. It still blows my mind that there is actually an animal that will produce an egg every day, like clockwork, and ask for nothing in return but scraps from your dinner plate. I see a not-to-distant future where the chicken claims the title as "the perfect pet." They are easy to care for, playful and productive ... a combination matched by no other animal I can think of. If you are not yet a Modern Mormon Farmer, it’s time to get started.
I began my urban farming adventure by purchasing a chicken coop on Amazon. It turned out to be not quite secure enough to keep out the raccoons that prowl my neighborhood. Unfortunately, I lost my chickens and a couple hundred bucks on a coop that now just adds to the clutter in my garage. I was determined to continue, so I pooled resources with a neighbor (a coop co-op) to afford the nicest chicken coop kit I could find on Craigslist … another mistake. The kit came with some cheap wood and a blank piece of paper, which I believe was intended by the Chinese manufacturer to be the instructions. With a little creativity, we got the coop set up in the backyard and the fresh eggs began coming in. That is, until the nesting box broke completely off of the coop. The wood couldn’t support the weight of two chickens, even though it had been recommended for four.
As I was going through these difficult times, I kept wondering, “Why isn’t there a legit chicken coop made for the typical urban farmer?” I found coops online that cost upward of a thousand dollars and could be towed by a tractor (neither of which I have) and coops that could double as bunny runs and dog houses, but I was not able to find a quality coop that would look good in my garden and provide the functionality I was looking for. Once I started sharing my concerns with like-minded backyard farms, I found that others were experiencing a similar dilemma. Luckily, one such friend happened to be a carpenter who jumped on the idea of building a coop from scratch and another was a web developer who could build a slick website to give us a presence online.
We landed on the idea of a chicken coop that resembles a little red barn, hence the name, RedBarnCoop.com. Our coops are everything that my first coops weren't.
- Handmade quality craftsmanship
- Beautiful red and white frame
- Doors that lock to keep chickens secure from predators
- Roosting bar and ventilation for happy, healthy chickens
- Perfect size for up to 4 chickens
- Accessible eggs to allow children to help
Our goal is to get chickens into every backyard and fresh eggs into every fridge. Any urban farmers out there with chicken stories to warm the soul and help promote the backyard farming cause?
