Swenson Family Coop – photo courtesy of Kimberly Swenson

Urban Chicken Podcast listener, Kimberly Swenson and her family finally got their first flock of backyard chickens after thinking about it for the past few years. Yay!  The Swenson Family flock consists of 2 Barred Rocks, 4 Black Sex Links, and a single Australorp.  They bought their new feathered family members on February 16th this year from a local farmer in their area.

Luke Swenson built the family hens their comfortable new digs, which turned out quite nicely.  The coop is 6×6 ft and outfitted with 3 nesting boxes.  Kimberly will soon get to learn that though there are plenty of nesting boxes for all of the hens to use, they will fight over one of them while two other adjacent boxes sit empty.  Ahhh…the joys of silly chicken fights within the flock.  The coop was purposefully built up off of the ground in order to provide the hens a shady place to escape hot summer sun.  The attached run is 6×15 ft to give the flock plenty of room to exercise.

Sprouted Grain Fodder – photo by Kimberly Swenson

Kimberly has already been sprouting grains to use as fodder for the flock to eat.  The birds seem to love it.  I am impressed by the fodder sheet shown in the picture.   This technique is a nice and healthy way to augment your hens’ diet. Check out their girls gathered around the fresh sod block in their run in the photos above.

Welcome Swenson Family to the world of backyard chicken keeping! Have you named your girls yet?