In this article I'll be giving the people of BYC a grand tour of my chicken coops!
Let's begin!
The first distinct feature is the working lamppost in front of the building. I turn it on at night to deter predators from lurking around.
The electric runs underground and goes into the chicken coop via these pipes.
It then powers an electrical outlet and the lamppost switch.
Once you enter the coop, you'll see grapevine roosting poles hanging to an elevation of about 10 feet.
The coop itself is 130 square feet and the floor is about 11 x 12 ft. It also features 7 windows, 3 of which open.
There are 12 nesting boxes. We used 5 gallon buckets for easy cleaning. I'm planning on building an additional moveable nest area under the western window that has 4 boxes.
There is a homemade flip latch door that leads to the outside inclosure.
On the "chicken porch" there's a roof and lots of bamboo and grapevine poles. This is where I keep my youngest and oldest chickens in the daytime. It measures 7 1/2 x 11 ft. for a total of 83 sq ft.
There's also a 4-inch PVC pipe feeder in the front.
Stepping into the second, larger enclosure, on the right is a sitting chair and roost poles. This enclosure has a wrap-around section (as seen below) that measures 8 x 40 ft. and a main section that measures 19 x 16 1/2 ft. for a total of 633 1/2 sq. ft.
on the left is the larger segment and more poles.
The whole run is also covered.
Another flip latch door leads back outside.
Some photos of the outside of the coop:
Building the enclosure
I put limestone around the chicken run to prevent predators from digging under.
I also built a rabbit hutch 10 years ago. The rabbits have since passed, and I've started working on "remodeling" it into a chicken cage. I fixed the hardware cloth on the left side and painted it, and now i have the right side to deal with. On the left I went with a strawberries-and-chocolate theme.
I'm using oops-paint for the art.
Thank you for looking at my chicken coop! I would love to hear about yours! (I'm not much of a writer, if you can tell)
Let's begin!
The first distinct feature is the working lamppost in front of the building. I turn it on at night to deter predators from lurking around.
The electric runs underground and goes into the chicken coop via these pipes.
The coop itself is 130 square feet and the floor is about 11 x 12 ft. It also features 7 windows, 3 of which open.
There are 12 nesting boxes. We used 5 gallon buckets for easy cleaning. I'm planning on building an additional moveable nest area under the western window that has 4 boxes.
There is a homemade flip latch door that leads to the outside inclosure.
On the "chicken porch" there's a roof and lots of bamboo and grapevine poles. This is where I keep my youngest and oldest chickens in the daytime. It measures 7 1/2 x 11 ft. for a total of 83 sq ft.
There's also a 4-inch PVC pipe feeder in the front.
Stepping into the second, larger enclosure, on the right is a sitting chair and roost poles. This enclosure has a wrap-around section (as seen below) that measures 8 x 40 ft. and a main section that measures 19 x 16 1/2 ft. for a total of 633 1/2 sq. ft.
on the left is the larger segment and more poles.
The whole run is also covered.
Another flip latch door leads back outside.
Some photos of the outside of the coop:
Building the enclosure
I put limestone around the chicken run to prevent predators from digging under.
I also built a rabbit hutch 10 years ago. The rabbits have since passed, and I've started working on "remodeling" it into a chicken cage. I fixed the hardware cloth on the left side and painted it, and now i have the right side to deal with. On the left I went with a strawberries-and-chocolate theme.
I'm using oops-paint for the art.
Thank you for looking at my chicken coop! I would love to hear about yours! (I'm not much of a writer, if you can tell)
