Building Dream Coop...

17 years ago

I know this question gets asked about every four months... but really, I am LOOKING for input.

We are in a building frenzy. The new fence went up, the old fence went down today. I 'thought' the arbor would be demolished and tomorrow would see the inputting of a permanent chicken coop.

So, the pertinant facts are that I can't house more than 12 birds because of my proximity to central down town. No roos, but I can have four turkey hens, geese, guineas, or ducks, ALONG with my 12 hens... (Lord, these people have lost any sense they had. They think roos' are loud? Well, guines eventually Do Grow Up and Quiet.)

I can have upto 24 actual livestock animals, on the approved list, and rabbits are quiet, right? ;)

So, We are moving the six hens from a tracktor set up to a permanant coop, person height, with a swinging door

~Hardware cloth, square wire mesh, rather than any chicken wire. (Nope, not a drop of trouble with the CW, but I remember the LAST time I asked for an over view of my tractor, and all the helpful advice I got against just CW.)

~Roosts, which the poor girls didn't really have in the tractor.

~Slanted concrete floor

~Slanted plywood roof, with Passiflora vine already ready to install for shade and greenery eating. A fast grower, so should fill the bill on both counts.

~The compost heap is mere feet away, another reason for the site.

~I will likely never have more than the six birds, but I could see perhaps 8 in my future.

~I have no need of insulation, lights, fans, or electic anything in the coop.

~I don't supplement light, I deal with lower yeilds due to lower light.

~Likely will NEVER have chicks to deal with, but one never knows what deal may drop in ones lap. (I did drive 900 miles one way with four hens in a quinea pig cage...) Did I mention my Mother is a Gentleman Farmer who supplied my orginal first hens?

I've been keeping birds for a year now, no bad things have happened, but Thank Heavens Above for Ms. Velvet Sparrow and her words of Wisdom. I have Chix First Aid. I am not advocating, just giving due to someone who has been instrumental with my becoming comfortable and easy with my birds.

So, please chime in on what you would 'redo' or definately put into your dream coop.

We are demo-ing tomorrow, to clear the area of an unused lathe/post tool port that is weed and bug infested. We have bush trimmers and chain saws.

Thanks for ANY input or ideas. I need all the help I can get. I will be looking at the Mother Earth tractors again, for ideas I want to incorporate.

We have foxes and o'possums but no racoons. Dogs and cats, but likely nothing else.

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Comments (5)

sullicorbitt
17 years ago
cena, sounds like you've got a very good plan! For my dream coop I would have a water source inside or just outside. The only suggestion I can think of for you is to build the coop larger than you need. We built ours last year thinking we would never have more than 16, well that changes the deeper you get into chickens as we all know. I spent the day yesterday painting the new addition we just built, now we have the capacity for about 32 birds. I had to chuckle at your town rules, no roo's but geese and guineas? what were they thinking ;)

Good luck and please post pictures when your done!

-Sheila

-Sheila
hotzcatz
17 years ago
Aloha Cena,

We have our coop about three feet off the ground with a wire bottom. The chickens can jump up into it but the mongoose can't so it all works well. With the wire bottom, we don't have to clean it out, either. When I need good dirt for the garden, I'll get some from there which is "pre-fertilized". It wasn't a particularly pretty coop, but a big bouganvilla has just about covered it and it is beautiful now. There is a water hose which drips into a big coffee can for water and two nesting boxes, but the girls prefer the box by the back window. I got tired of taking their feed up to the chicken coop, so we have a bit of roof gutter installed under a window with a perch along it and with a nesting box right next to it. The girls come down from their coop in the morning for their grain and then they leave the eggs right there outside the window. The chicken coop door stays open all the time (no possoms, no foxes, no racoons to worry about here) and the girls go inside at night to sleep. The chickens are absolutely easy to keep with this set up. Open the window, put grain in their feeder and take the eggs from the box, the rest of the "work" is to watch them be yard art.

A hui hou,
Cathy
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lfrj
17 years ago
We'd advocate a drain, pipe and miniature drainfield to go with the concrete floor (if you can). Absolutely LOVE this feature in our coop. Every sunday the bedding comes up, hose, scrub and rinse.

(You can install metal 4x4 footing brackets while the cement is wet too and build roosts, etc off the 4x4's as you please!)

lf & rj
bejay9_10
17 years ago
My carpenter skills aren't all that great, so I looked around for some kind of do-it-yourself kit. The closest thing was a chain link dog kennel - ordered through the Internet.

It comes in sections of 4 x 6 metal frames (4 pieces), and the chain link to wrap around, plus the hardware to clamp it all together. While it has a door, I would have preferred that the door had been a rectangle instead of oval, as it leaves openings at the corners (rats, mice, etc.). So I fashioned a piece of plywood to cover the door for added security, held with a bungee cord - works ok.

I laid 2 sections of galvanized wire on the ground, placed the cage on top and secured all around the sides of the frame. Then wrapped the entire cage in galvanized 1/2 inch wired all around the outside, leaving top open.

For the top, I found 3 pieces of corrugated paneling that was placed across the top. I just held these down with blocks - so that if necessary, they could be removed for easier access.

After the frame work, I installed one of my cedar raised bed planter boxes, filled with nice compost (lucky hens), where they can scratch in the dirt, dust feathers, etc., and covered with straw (changing from time to time).

For added night time protection and egg laying, I happened to have an unused rabbit cage, with a hinged top. It is about 3 x 3 x 2 ft. deep, filled with straw where they can get extra weather protection and for nesting.

They immediately began using the top of the rabbit cage for their "porta-potty" area, making it easy to scrape clean every day, keeping the rest of the area clean of most droppings.

I have a hose connection nearby - where most of the composting is done anyway, so filling waterers are easy. Also keep feed and tools handy nearby in a plastic garbage can that has wheels on it.

All-in-all, this has proved to be a fairly decent set-up, though I would have liked the cage to be "person-high" - as it is only 4 ft., I felt I could make the sacrifice, as that gave the hens a bit more inside room, having the 6 ft. wide sections for their needs.

So - for what it's worth, that is how I made mine, in the "burbs" but I, too, am limited to hens - don't want to disrupt the neighborhood peace and quiet. Cuz, if I do, they might notice my bee hive - yikes!

Bejay
vinnyc
17 years ago
I made my coop out of an old Fisher Price Playhouse. It's great, because you can hose it out through the windows, and it's indestructible. I built a frame for it to sit on,the floor is made of 1/2" hardware cloth about 8" off the ground, with wheels on it, and also built an enclosed area about 4 x 5 feet attached to the front of the house, with a gate. I can lift one end and roll it wherever I want. The chickens are doing a number on the weeds and poison ivy growing on an area of my yard that I just cleared of trees. I put an old kitchen cabinet from above the stove in there for a nest box, but they seem to more interested in going on top of it than inside it. I don't know how to do pictures.

Building Dream Coop...

Comments (5)

sullicorbitt

hotzcatz

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lfrj

bejay9_10

vinnyc

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