Tour D' Coop- Coop # 2

Welcome to the Northern Vermont Tour D' Coop.
If you missed the visit to Coop #1 you may read the details HERE

   At stop # 2 there was a long convoy going to this coop location.  We stopped traffic on both sides of Rt 5 when the crowds of people crossed the road to get to this colorful coop.

This location has extensive flower gardens, goats, beef cattle, heritage breed chickens, unusual coop art work, guinea hens and baby chicks.  There are also several animal sheds and a cellar coop.

The flower gardens were in full bloom and we walked by hundreds of beautiful perennials and annuals.  There were also 500 varieties of day lilies on the property all waving their colors. It was difficult to follow the crowd down to the barn and not take a zillion photos of the flowers. Unfortunately the ones I did take came out blurred, except for this phlox
I want to go back and take a few more photos.

Our host at this farm is Shawn.

He is a principal at the local school, a farmer and a horticulturalist with an emerald thumb.

He bought this place from a man who was a race car driver.  The garage had an area underneath it that was a place they repaired engines.  Shawn turned it into a small chicken coop.
This cellar coop stays warm in the winter and nice and cool in the summer.

I had a difficult time taking photos of the outside of the coop because so many people were asking me questions.  Every time I went to snap a photo, some other distraction happened.

So there are more photos of the coop here and there.

The crowd loved the Pygmy goats.

Shawn rents this 200 year old barn across the field and raises Irish Dexter cattle. Of course they were all on the OTHER side of the barn, in the shade when we got there, and would not come over to our side.  This scenic farm is a landmark in this valley. The cows and the guinea hens are frequently photographed for the local newspaper.

You can see a bit of the coop behind Shawn.

This is their former rabbit hutch that is going to be changed over to a chick brooder soon.
Shawn's children have recently been using an incubator to hatch out chicks.

People were already discussing swapping for hens and chicks. 

A very attentive audience.
You can see the Door to coop under the garage.

The baby goat was carried and fawned over and this woman said she was taking it home.

All the kids got to pet goats, hold chicks, touch eggs and listen to roosters crow.
The rooster in residence was a Blue Copper Maran that I gave Shawn this spring. (it was suppose to be a "guaranteed" pullet when I got it...)

Here is a photo of them coming to pick up the young, vocal rooster.
Great things came out of that first meeting.

More baby goat cuteness.  With all the interest in the goats at this farm, I might have to organize a goat tour for next summer!

An assortment of colorful hens.  All free range.

Friendly goats and a confident goat boy.

Goat house on the left, turkey and meat bird house on the right.

A few of the guinea hens decided to make an appearance.  There are about 30 of them and they frequently cross the main road without looking both ways.....

I finally made my way under the garage into the coop.

Shawn's children did the art work.

A chicken tenement.

Stanchions for the two Irish Dexters they use to milk.

Good sturdy perches made from his own tree branches.

When the new chicks were brought out, the entire crowd shifted its location.

Every child held a chick.

Its difficult to get anyone's attention when there are baby goats and chicks around!

Meanwhile the goats and birds were doing some heavy snacking.
This goat looks like he is saying "hey, come look at me, put those chicks down and come over here!"

The guinea hens came into the barnyard for a few of us to see them up close.

I still do not have a decent photo of the entire "under the garage" coop, but here is yet another photo of the front door.

More goats showed up.

As the event coordinator I was unable to get anyone to start returning to their vehicles so we could get on the road to Coop # 3. We had a strict time frame, but all the cuteness of the chicks had really made it difficult to leave.
I continued to watch the flock, waiting for the crowd to get their fill of the chicks and flowers.

The goat house has climbing stairs to keep the goats busy.

The swings kept the youngest member on the tour happy and occupied.

The meat bird and turkey house is going to have a new paint job this week.

The kids said the hens prefer to go into the the goat shed and hide their eggs in there.

The gardens were beautiful and full of sweet smells.

Finally a few people started heading for their vehicles.

Everyone has to go through the boot wash first before leaving.

It was another chance to admire the plantings.

Its a long ride to the next location.

Stay tuned for Coop # 3.

Tour D' Coop - Coop # 1

Welcome to the Newbury Vermont Tour D' Coop.

It is a great tour of coops, gardens, livestock and other surprises. It's the first time there has been a coop tour in this neck of the woods, but I have a sneaky suspicion that this may become an annual event.
We will be visiting 6 totally different kinds of coops and driving many scenic back roads to reach them.

Since you could not be here in person, I will narrate the happenings and use photos from that day to help explain the fabulous day of events.  I was the "Coop Coordinator" for this big event and had been developing this unique tour since spring.

First of all it was pouring rain at 4 am and as I lay in my bed I wondered how many people would show up if the weather remained challenging.  As the tour coordinator I had guessed about 15 people would show up for the entire tour.  But only 7 if it rained.

By 8 am the clouds had left, the sun came out and I finished my chores, dropped off my many bags of cans and bottles at the recycling center and headed over to the local tennis courts to await the arrival of chicken coop tourists.

With plenty of parking we chose the tennis courts in the center of the village as a meeting place and an area where we could car pool to a few of the locations that had limited parking.

I was 30 minutes early and within a few seconds families started arriving by car, van, truck and bike to partake of this unusual Saturday event.  Many wore boots just in case it started raining again.

As soon as everyone signed in, gave their donation to the local church food shelf ($5 suggested donation) and had their hand stamped, we headed to Coop #1.    It was 10 am.

 

 Our host at Coop # 1 was Peter.

His home is just a mere 4 doors down from where we all met on the common.

His coop is right in the center of the village and just about everyone was shocked when they realized there are chickens in the village and no one knew about them!

His coop is set back from the road, well hidden by the landscape and is part of his garage.

Considering how many bantams he has, his grass remains perfectly trimmed and growing every day.

It was an attentive audience as Peter explained why he chose the breeds he had and why he decided on his coop and pen design.  He pointed out where his compost pile is and how he distributed the compost around his gardens.   What people feed their flock is always an interesting conversation and Peter told us what his birds menu was on a daily basis.  There were lots and lots of questions and I worried about weather we would "stay on schedule" or still be driving to coops at sunset!

He had bantam eggs on display in several different shades.  It was a real "touch and tell" visit.

Not too many people had ever seen bantam eggs before or patted a calm bantam hen.

He built a 12 x 12 coop inside of his garage.
It is doubly protected from the harsh winters we have here in Vermont. Lucky birds!

Peter brought out one of his silky hens for everyone to pat.

There was a line to see his unusual coop.
We counted 36 people in attendance with lots of kids and one very very interested teenager.

A Millie Fleur hen and her newly hatched chick was discovered by one of the tour guests.

Peter was very surprised and pleased.

The rest of us were thrilled!

Peter has a different kind of nest box. Plastic. From recycled 5 gallon buckets.

He purchased them and likes them as they are easy to clean and move around his coop.

I had never seen any like this.

He had the usual feeders and waterers, but the coop door was a lot smaller than most coop doors because of his smaller sized chickens.

Before we left to go to the next coop, we all dunked our feet into the clorox boot wash.

Us farmers are very bio security conscious.

There were an assortment of colorful boots represented on this tour.

Beautiful gardens surrounded his yard.

We said thank you to Dawn and Peter and headed to Coop #2.
Most of the coop hosts went on the tour visiting all the other coops as well, but Peter had thrown his back out 2 days before and was not going to risk making it worse. He is going to have a private tour of the other 5 coops once he is feeling better.

Stay tuned for Coop # 2.

Please share this post with your poultry loving friends.

Ever been on a Tour D' Coop?
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