My fabulous chicken coop didn’t start out very fabulous. Once upon a time, my family started with just seven chickens in a treehouse coop.

After a year of dreaming of having a lot more birds, I quickly took over my husband’s tractor shed. My love for my chickens quickly turned into more than 100 and counting. It also led to the creation of my dream coop.

We now have a functioning farm. We have a farm-based business, too, making soaps and other products from our animals. I also offer farm tours and do soap-making and canning classes. And it all started from a single-digit amount of chickens.

Our family lovingly named our chicken coop (shown below) the ABCDfarmhouse Palace. We have worked hard to create a custom coop for our birds.

Here I am holding my favorite breed, a Lavender Orpington rooster.

Here’s a Lavender Orpington taking in the morning sun.

Here are some of our Rhode Island Reds and Gold Stars enjoying breakfast.

Our son, Carter, helps raise and care for chicks.

This story originally appeared in the November/December 2018 issue of Chickens magazine. It’s a feature called Chicken Chat, in which readers submit stories and photos of their experience keeping chickens. Would you like to tell the world how you got started keeping chickens and just how far you’ve come? Send your story for consideration. Compose your tale in about 750 words and send it to chickens@chickensmagazine.com with the subject line “Chicken Chat.” Include high-resolution photos of yourself, your chickens, your coop or your chicken run.