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spring
chickens
Chere Hickock loves her “girls,” as she calls her six hens. Seven years ago, when she bought property in Bluffview and needed new digs for the girls, Chere enlisted architects Scott Mannhard and Jennifer Taylor to design and build the coop based on an African structure she’d seen in pictures. “It’s kind of termite mound-y and very organic,” Chere says.
The completed chicken coop is an eclectic mix of recycled and found materials, including crape myrtle branches, bamboo, cement, sand, pine, cedar, glass, and metal. In return for their swanky digs, “the girls” supply a regular bounty of fresh, organic eggs and, thanks to a compost bin beneath the coop, garden fertilizer.
But Chere admits it’s not all about the eggs. “This is a labor of love,” she says. “It is soul satisfying. It makes you feel not quite so citified. When I can look out in the yard and see the chickens, it reminds me of a simpler life.”