While we’re waiting for
the stars to align and allow us to build our perfect
chicken coop, I
figured we could put a bit of time into sprucing up the current coop to
solve at least a few of the most pressing
problems. First on the list was creating real doors so our
popholes could be closed against predators (and against chickens who
think the grass is greener on the other side of the coop).
To refresh your memory,
our coop has several chicken-sized doors (popholes) in the walls to let
me turn the flock out into a different pasture every week without
moving their home. (You can read more about the
rotational pasture concept here.) The popholes are in
the right places and work great, but I never got around to putting
doors on our to-do list, so chickens occasionally go out the wrong hole.
Luckily, it doesn’t take much
to make a quality pophole door. Continuing with our theme of
using next to no cash to build the coop, Mark blocked off part of the
current pophole with some scrap lumber leftover from another project,
then he built the door out of more of the same. He did affix a
hinge and latch to solidify the arrangement, but otherwise, no purchase
was necessary to make our pophole door.
Our chickens won’t care
one bit about the upgrade, but we’ll rest easier knowing the flock is
shut up tight in the evening. One of my favorite aspects of
homesteading is the way every little job makes your life a little
easier, and pophole doors definitely fit into that category.
Chicken coop pophole
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About The Author
Anna & Mark
Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton are a pair of back-to-the-landers who have been homesteading for over a decade.
Because I’m simultaneously old and secretly twelve, I keep reading the last word ad “poophole”.
Josh — Maybe that’s why you don’t see the word “pophole” in American literature much? 🙂