Hooked up for power

After a couple grueling weeks digging a trench, and having friends come over to do the handiwork, the electrical line running to the chicken coop has passed inspection!

The Ferndale city inspector came out bright and early at the beginning of the week. We started out in the yard, where the electric line came out of the house. The inspector checked the two outlets there, and said he detected power. This was good.

We followed the trench line back to the coop, and he went in with the chickens for a few minutes to check things over.

“They don’t bite, do they?” he asked, as Nellie sized him up from behind.

“I think you’ll be OK,” I assured him, hoping Nellie would hold her pecking behavior in check.

After checking the inside of the hen house, we went into the basement to look at the circuit breaker box.

As the inspector filled out my neon green “Approved” sticker, he told me the wire work would hold up for years to come.

I never had any doubt. I had a great crew of friends working on this project, and I fueled it with my lucky Dutch Girl donuts. Of course this was going to pass with flying colors!

Now I am ready to buy an electric/heated waterer (this will prevent their drinking water from freezing during the winter months) along with a small radiant heat panel for the hen house. As I’ve read chickens are pretty resilient down to about zero degrees, I’d still like to have something in place to raise the temp just a few degrees on those impossibly cold days.

It took a long time, but I finally have the trench filled back in. I forgot to tamp down the dirt, and hilariously sank to my knee when I stepped on the line! So now everything is slightly tamped with my feet, then loosely covered again with more soil.

I’ll leave the finish work to darling Matt.