Coop is DONE and the girls are OUT!

Guess what? We finished the coop. Really, we did.

My poor husband spent hours and hours, after work, in the dark, in the rain, in the hail, and in the cold finishing this damn thing and now it's done.

Here's a quick time-lapse recap of the last week...
My last coop post showed the walls up, but getting the roof slats on was a major milestone, too:

Next came the doors and the felt paper on top of the roof slats. Peter, Jim's son, helped put the protective hardware cloth over the vents under the eves:

19 gauge, 1/2" hardware cloth: hopefully, this will keep the bad guys and nasty pests out:

My youngest son, Aidan, helped cut the plywood floor to cover the 2x4's, as well as the litter board to keep the shavings from falling out the door:

Oh, this was a big moment...putting the hardware on the doors. Two handles and a lockable, swivel latch. Lovely!!!:

Ta Daaaa...the grand opening! Modeling hands and body courtesy of my mother:

The temporary roosts (lower for younger chickens) are in place and the feeder and waterer will be hung at a later time. The nest boxes will go in to the right rear of the coop when they are a bit older (right now I think they'd just poop on and/or sleep in them):

The right hand corner is where the feed and bedding are being stored. Hopefully, at some point, I will separate a small storage area from the rest of the coop that will be inaccessible to the girls:

The big moment: the girls in their Rubbermaid Transport Vehicle (RTV):

On our way to the coop (waaaay in the distance because we don't have a gate close to the coop at this time):

Teagan, my oldest son, did the introduction-to-the-new-coop honors:

The girls were very serious about scoping out the new place:

Sparrow was in my face, as usual:

Then came the important job of covering my mom's boots with pine shavings:

They took this task very seriously:

Then it became vital to test one of the new perches:

Roxy, in the meantime, decided to take our distraction as an opportunity to rub her face in something so foul in one of the pastures that I almost lost my dinner when I smelled her:

I kid you not, the stench was unbelievable. We still don't know what it was, but the poor girl had to be lathered up, from head-to-toe, twice to make it go away:

Goodnight girls!: