Because our chicks were born in mid-May, we were able to move them to their chicken coop within a few weeks. This is earlier than what most chicken experts recommend. We experienced a stretch of warm weather so I started keeping them out during the day and brought them back to the brooder at night. I kept their coop right up against our house, with some chicken wire as a run surrounding it. I let them free range while I was available to supervise.

When they were ten weeks old, they were regularly flying over the chicken wire. We decided to make them a permanent pen. Our barn has two long run ins for the horses and one side was already sectioned off. We made an enclosure using sections of a recycled dog kennel. This provided us with the door we would need to enter, as well as the third and fourth wall. We secured this onto the posts, and surrounded the opening to the roof with chicken wire. We are not handy people and are very pleased with what we had accomplished!