We tour a chicken-keeping advocate’s coop and get some sage advice.

ARTICLE BY LISA BRUNETTE

Bill Ruppert surveys his flock.

PHOTOS BY LISA BRUNETTE

The second-story overlook affords chicken-keeper Ruppert a view of the garden and house beyond.

Fantasy chicken coop designs abound, from the quaint farmhouse-style coop with window flower boxes to the hobbit home for chickens to the coop fashioned out of an old junk car. Factor in mobile coops, and you’ve got everything from your average chicken tractor to the chickshaw, a kind of rickshaw for chickens. But you haven’t seen the mother of all coops until you’ve toured –– and I do mean physically toured –– Bill Ruppert’s Coop de Rupe.

At first glance, you might think it’s the site of a bed and breakfast operating out of Ruppert’s backyard, what with its green metal roof and cedar exterior. Or perhaps a fancy cabana or she shed. But then you see the flock.

Chickens live in this backyard oasis, up to 30 at a time. They’re well protected from the many predators that have sought them out over the years, with secure indoor and outdoor spaces. While to my uninitiated eyes, Coop de Rupe seems like a poultry Shangri-la, Ruppert likens it to another iconic building, and for a reason. “This is the Fort Knox of chicken coops,” he says. “After my big mink attack …we used to have this welded wire mesh up here, but the mink squeezed in, so I had to move over to ½-inch hardware mesh.”

You might not think of Bill Ruppert’s suburban backyard as a farm, but this sign says otherwise!

Beyond the chicken quarters, there’s also a garden shop area and second-story lookout tower. “It’s the tree house I never had as a child,” Ruppert says, jokingly. “The architect who designed our home addition, when we were done with that, I said to her, ‘Well now we want you to design a chicken coop.’” This was in 2004, and Ruppert claims he spent more on this poultry barn than his parents spent on their entire home back in 1962.