8x8 coop on wheels?

moodybubbles

Songster
10 Years
Aug 30, 2009
125
1
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I have a 4x8 now. It was fine for my 7 hens and 1 rooster until I put ducks in there as well. Now the chickens free range, the ducks use the run during the day and they all stay in the coop at night along with the goose.

I can't find free range eggs and step in free range poo every day.

So I need a new coop. I was thinking 8x8 and on wheels so I can move it easily if needed in the future.

Problems with old coop are that the 2x4 space for feed area doesn't function as well as I had hoped. Snakes enter the coop occasionally (and tried to eat a chick) and attempt to take eggs.

I don't think I can stop snakes but I think 4 x8 space for one feed can and new chicks or hurt chickens in a small portion of that with hardware cloth to keep snakes from chicks and the rest of space for 2 nesting boxes accessible from outside and two windows lined with hardware cloth for air flow in summer.

Not a tractor per say but kind of similar to a chicken trailer...I need to be able to move it because I can't decide where it would be best to put it. Inside a fenced area with my dairy goats and barn where they could potentially free range confined within the goat pasture (and poop where my milk goats lay) or over next to ducks with the ability to make small run and later enclose more and let ducks/chickens range together during the day in larger run. I don't think they will fly over 4 ft fence. They normally don't otherwise they would be in the goat pen occasionally now by flying over their fence.
 
My suggestion to you , is get a retired camper (those can be cheap or free) and convert to a nice coop. It can be bigger than 8 x 8 which makes ideal as to no overcrowding. It will also keep those serpents out. Not totally but minimize the possibility.
WISHING YOU BEST
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This is what we ended up building. I didn't find any cheap trailers. The husband came up with an axel. It won't hold up on the highway but for an occasional Move it should work. I have to put wire mesh screens on the windows later today. The 8 chickens were moved in last night.
 
I'm using half for my hens now. I have 8 in the 4x8 space but I could easily fit another 2-3 confortably.

The other half is feed storage and I plan on setting up a brooder area that will be about 3x4 for my ducklings that are in the incubator now.
 
It cost right at $700 to build. That does not include the wheels, tires, axel or windows all of which we already had laying around.

Here is the inside. I put the nesting boxes inside instead of outside on my last coop.
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I should be able to keep snakes mostly out of this. It has a solid guillotine style door (my last coop had a heavy grill grate door that snakes could slither between the slats). It sits a bit higher than the old one so maybe not so many snakes can hide under it. i just added a 16x16 small run that is 4ft high today. I hope they don't try to fly over the fence to get to their old coop. If so I will have to cover this new run with deer netting.

I found 4 eggs in the nesting box today. This is so much better than hunting for the free range eggs because I never could find them. And if I did they would quit laying them there.

I will free range them only a couple of hours each day after they get used to this new coop sitting next to their old one. The ducks and goose get the old one.

Later, after kidding season with the goats and after our barn addition is completed, I will complete a 1-1.5 acre run and keep the small run as a grow out pen. It is made of 8 ft panels so it can be moved separately from the coop if needed.
 

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