The Chicken Coop Cold War: A True Tale of Feathers, Family, and Fowl Play

Let me set the stage for you.

For years, my wife has talked about raising chickens. Not in a serious way. More like, “One day, I’d like to have a few hens for fresh eggs.” It was in the same category as “we should eat healthier” and “we should start a garden”—great in theory, safe in the 'maybe later' column.

But everything changed the moment our son moved in across the street.

Now, if you know anything about Zach, it’s that he doesn’t do things halfway. So when he decided to raise chickens, he didn’t just build a coop. He constructed what can only be described as the Mansion on the Hill—a luxury resort for poultry. I mean, this thing has square footage that rivals some starter homes. Enough space for 15 chickens to live like they’re retired in Palm Springs. I wouldn’t be surprised if those birds had a sauna and a community theater night.

That’s when the war started.

Tiffany saw that coop and decided—quietly, but with purpose—that she would not be outdone. And so, she casually informed me that she was ready to get her chickens. Just five. No big deal.

Fast forward a few days. She sends me to the post office to pick them up. I walk in expecting a small box with a handful of peeping fluffballs. What I get instead is a chirping cardboard cargo crate. I ask the postal worker if this is really ours, and she laughs like she’s heard this before. "Yep, 25 chicks."

Twenty-five! I stood there holding that box like I had just adopted an entire kindergarten class.

Of course, a few didn’t make it in those first couple of days. Nature has its way. But here’s where the logic train went completely off the rails. Rather than adjusting the plan or, I don’t know, taking a breath, Tiffany replaced the lost chicks. With local ones. From nearby chicken orphanages. Because "we already had 25" and that felt like the new baseline.

Somehow, through the black magic of chicken math, that five-chick dream has turned into 45 full-blown feathery freeloaders living in our spare room. And if you think that’s where the madness ends, you clearly don’t know Tiffany.

She’s in there every day like Dr. Doolittle—squatting down, hands outstretched like she’s summoning woodland creatures. The chicks jump onto her palms like she’s the poultry messiah. She coos at them. They chirp back. It’s adorable and mildly terrifying.

Meanwhile, I’m outside staring at the coop. A coop that is very much not built for 45 birds. I’ve got blueprints laid out like I’m designing a damn chicken Ritz-Carlton. Every time I think I’ve figured out the run size, another batch of chicks arrives or she tells me one of the older hens “might be lonely.” I’ve got about three weeks to turn this thing into the Disneyland of backyard chickens.

And I already know what's coming: pink paint. Custom signs. Probably solar lights and a name plaque that says “The Cluckin Catus.”

Here’s the kicker—we don’t even eat that many eggs. I mean sure, we like a good breakfast now and then, but this isn’t a household that needs 30 eggs a day. At this point, between Zach’s deluxe chicken suite and Tiffany’s rapidly growing sorority of hens, we’re on pace to supply the entire town of Andrews with organic, free-range, emotionally supported eggs.

If you see me around town in the next few weeks, just nod in solidarity. I’m not building a coop anymore—I’m building a legacy. A feathery, overly complicated, completely unnecessary legacy.