Chicken Coop finale

The three year chicken coop project is done.  Done I say!  I can cross this fully off my to-do list.
The coop had a previous life as a very wee little home for someone, most likely a farmhand.  I have records of the builder's wife (in 1904) moving to a "small house on the property" when the husband died, leaving my house vacant.  I don't think she moved into this.  There is still a wood burning cooking stove rusting away in the corner...

When I bought the farm four years ago, they gave this structure no value.  What a surprise.

 This is the siding removed for repairs. And a lot of repairs were needed : the siding was rotten ground up, the corner posts were rotten, the roof shot, the eave supports rotten, and no foundation for the whole thing. I thought of going to Home Depot and buying a prefab shed as a chicken coop, it would have been damn cheaper. But after looking at the lumber used in this (other than the siding!) I thought this was worth saving.  And now the coop will be home to 50 more years of chickens. 

 Regarding chickens... these two are Glory and Fred.  They moved here this summer from the humane society when we had a bumper crop of rats RATS living under the coop.  After 11 days there were no more rats.  The tabby is in particular an excellent hunter. Alongside our little black cat Bella the two of them cleaned up the rodent issue.