A Busy Weekend With the McCluckski's

Since the chickens finally gave us eggs this week, Jason and I decided that it was only right for us to finally finish their nest box in their coop. This is where they can lay their eggs. Before we just had a cardboard box inside the coop for them (this is where Jason found the egg the other day). However, Jason about two months ago started to work on a proper box for them and this weekend we finally got it all finished. It looks great! Check out the before and after (we attached the nest box on the side of the coop)...



On Saturday morning Jason started the process of finishing our project by doing a really good cleaning of the entire coop (it needed it!). While doing this he ended up finding five green eggs in the storage area above the coop. Unfortunately we couldn't eat these eggs because there was no telling how long they had been sitting around, but it was good news because we knew both we were laying since these eggs were green.



After cleaning everything out, Jason did the last touches on the box and I painted the roof of it white. While we were doing that we noticed Latika circling around in the cardboard box. We got to witness the egg laying process (well didn't actually see it come out, but heard a lot of squawking). It actually seemed quite exhausting on the poor girl. I'm glad she has plenty of room, food, and water so she can relax afterward.



Today while Auntie Erin came by to hang out with Aspen, Jason attached the nest box onto the side of the coop. Then I helped out by painting the box red to match the rest of the coop. Jason made it so that the roof is on a hinge so we don't have to go inside the coop every time we go to retrieve an egg.



We got another egg today!



Of course we had to spruce up the coop because...well...these darn chickens have been through so much and they deserve it.

**Side note--Toula is the only one from the original batch (she lays the green eggs) and she is also the same chicken who made the great escape in our garage when she was just a chick.

So we bought some stencil letters to spell out their name...McCluckski... and then we made chicken stencils because they didn't have any at the store. Pretty creative if you ask me.

Jason with the chicken stencils.



Painting on the stencils.



The final product. I think it looks awesome.



Of course we had to do all of this work during Aspen's naps, but thankfully she has been in a really good rhythm of taking two naps a day (about 1 to 1 1/2 hrs.). I actually was able to use our baby monitor for once. We don't need it in our house because it's small enough we can hear her, but it was useful being out at the coop to be able to hear her. This is what we found after one of her naps. It was a gorgeous day today and we had the windows open and the little one hanging out in her diaper.