Submit Coop Design Pictures For The BYC.com Site!!

Hey everyone,

When I first visited www.BackyardChickens.com over 2 years ago my favorite pages were the coop examples. I'd really like to build out this section with new submissions.

I'll take whatever you'd like to send, but submissions with the best descriptions and design / construction pictures usually get top billing on the coop design page. Here is what I'd love to receive if you can send it:

1) A write up of how you built your coop along with any information you think would be helpful to other people about to build a coop.
2) Any designs / plans you used to build your coop.
3) Pictures of your coop as it was constructed
4) Finished pictures of your coop.

Here are some examples of what we'd love to receive: https://www.backyardchickens.com/coopdesigns.html

UPDATE: -- Supmit your coop yourself! Use the personal pages tool to create a coop page. See here: https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=11802

I am only 54, but I find at times it is very hard to work stooped over for long periods of time. Lifting heavy things, dragging chicken tractors, and working stooped over saps all my strength making having my chooks less than a joy. I would like to see some designs that have some solutions for handicapped or weak and older people that are easy to build. Or adaptable solutions for people with limited energy and movement.

Also, I would like ideas for grain storage that is convenient for handicapped. Often I can get my grain delivered but they just stack it and then it is hard for me to lift or move. It makes it very hard to clean around the heavy sacks. Also ideas that take into consideration rodent/predator proof ideas would be nice as well.

I can do a lot of work, if it doesn't require me to stoop or bend over a whole lot or carry a lot of heavy things. See what I mean? There could also be ideas for adaptations to pre-existing coops and pens that can help make taking care of birds easier, so older people can have them longer than they would have under normal circumstances.

Another consideration is money, some of the designers need to take into consideration the cost. Many people on here don't say anything but I will. I just don't have the extra cash to make elaborate coops. I need simple designs that are cost effective and easy to assemble.



Arklady

This is my set-up. The coop on the left houses 3 standard sized hens, 1 bantam rooster and 7 bantam hens. The coop on the right houses one male Pekin duck and one male albino mallard. The pen in the middle serves both by way of trap doors in the sides of the coops but there is a fence inside to keep them apart. The coops are just garden sheds made out of rough cut pine, stained in Home Depot's "Boot Hill Grey". They are insulated inside (against Canadian winters) with Roxul insulation that is covered with a plastic vapor barrier. I used to take the insulation out each spring and put it back up in the fall, but last summer left it up and it didn't seem to make any difference in the heat within so that lightens my load a bit! Each coop has an electrical outlet so I can plug a red heating lamp in for those cold days and nights. These days they are on 24 hours. I don't have running water to the coops....it would involve much trenching (to get below the frostline) and as I do most of the work myself, I'm not apt to ever have running water. So on these cold mornings I just take a few jugs with my in the morning and refresh their waterers with warm. Most of the time there is only a really thin layer of ice on the top of their water so if I am late, it is not a disaster. I use a thick layer of shavings as bedding and keep topping it up during the winter. Inside, I just use small plastic garbage pails with lids to house the food so I don't have to lug that as well. In the run, I have a mixture of sand and gravel in the chicken side and just sand on the duck side. The ducks get a kiddie pool in the summer and I must admit...THAT was a major job everyday lugging water up there. They are extremely messy in their pool. I never had ducks until last summer and it was not by choice. My daughter worked at a wildlife rehab place and they felt that they could not return this albino mallard to the wild so Mom caved and said we'd take him. That meant getting him a friend duck and by chance, someone brought the Pekin duck to the rehab place a little later in the summer so we got him too.

Here's a few of mine

Just expanded the coop from 8x8 to 8x20. We built the addition a year later and then cut into the exterior wall of the original coop, making the window a door between the two rooms. Construction pics at the bottom.





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|Hi Speckled Hen! I love your coup! Do you have the roof over the nesting boxes slanted to prevent them from roosting on top? Also, what is in the mini feeder under the nesting boxes? Love that they have a separate "dining" room. Very nice, indeed.

what are the hanging cds for in the run?

These are pictures of our coop/run from a year ago. We've made a few changes (for instance, the run is now twice the size) but it pretty much looks the same today. Our coop isn't as big as some others because with our weather, the chickens can be outside 99% of the year.
The inside... I wish we'd put the roosts up top and the nests down on the bottom...




A lot of the run is shaded by trees. It gets very hot where I am.


The coop and run is about five feet below the grass line, so we are able to stand on the grass and look down in the run.


A "Welcome" sign and a window for our rooster to peer out of. We painted the coop the same color as our house. The coop is on stilts and the chickens like to dustbathe under it. That is also their hang out on extremely hot days.

okay here is the new coop, unfortunatly it was completed later then expected, due to the passing of my grandmother, the original chicken lady in my life. All of what you see here was constructed for just under $300. I had forgotten that we had deck wood in our delapidated barn (next project........chicken's FIRST!) which was FREE 3 or 4 years ago. The windows you see I purchased t an RV salvage yard for $25 for the both, due to torn screens, of course they were replaced with hardware clothe. The walls were purchased at a resale store and were $7.50 a sheet due to defects (like poo isn't going to be a defect), 4 sheets totall. Isulated, relieved (?) from overstock of a construction site, (my work, how convenient). Total spent $300 for nails, siding, tin roof and incidentals, so far ext weekend the full size run, what you see now is the temporary run.





patiently waiting






as you notice, the nest boxes are missing, but that's okay we aren't producing eggs yet and will install when we are ready for them just behind the roosting perch you see, the waterer and feeders were hung also, after the pics you see.

Finally home!!!!!!!!!!


Hopefully the pics come out on my first attempt, if not sorry, but we are exhausted!!!!!!!!!!!


R.I.P. Grandma

So sorry for your loss.
Your coup pictures are very, very nice indeed. I really like job your DH is doing on it. What a neat idea to get your windows at an RV salvage. I didn't realize there was such a place, that is cool.