Coop for one rooster....one/two hens....

You and "your chickens" have been through so much! I hope you can make them a good home! For right now ANY shelter will be appreciated, whether its a dog house or a tarp. Use your imagination and create whatever fits in your backyard. Those poor chickens. How can anyone be so careless to let this happen? You are doing such a good deed by helping them.  Merry

It seems like all my small/temporary/quarantine coops resembly enclosed rabbit hutches.  So, how about one of those?  I don't know how much they cost, but as a short term solution you could get one of those and close up the sides.  They don't need much, even in the cold, when they are healthy.  I can't tell you how many times I've provided shelter and given the choice they'll roost on the top of it.  Given that you can provide a pen you could get away with not providing the standard 4 sqft per bird for a short period of time. If you did it this way, when you do build your coop, you'll still have this to house recovering, or new birds during quarantine. Which it sounds like you'll need in the future..  

The set-up I use for temporary housing like this is a 10x10 dog run/kennel with a small wooden rabbit like hutch.  I also put a tarp along the outside of the pen to block the prevailing wind.  As long as they have protection from the wind/draft they're usually pretty happy.  As I said, more often than not some of the chickens will sleep on top of the hutch instead of in it since they have the wind break.  I can provide a pic if needed.

Good luck.  Hope you can help out those birds. I have a daughter the age of your daughters and she's very involved with the chickens and loves going out and visiting/playing with them.

DP

Help...........  My wife and I are starting our Backyard Barnyard and are in question about our interior
of the housing for our hens we have 8 comming in about a month.....I bought a small building already made and have been upfitting it to house not only my chickens but also my bunnies so I have kinda devided the building in 1/3rds the middle for storage, feed, etc. (me ) but anyway I am building 3 nesting boxes and a perch area.  The problem is when all this is done if I do it like I plan, there is no room for feeders and waters....expecially when you add in calcium and gritt bins.... My wife says instead of a chicken coop I am building a chicken Villa.....She draws the line at me taking them the wide screan TV.....Any suggestions the area I am working with is about 5x8 retangle (8 foot ceilings) with a door for me in the middle inside wall and a small one for them on the outside wall leading out into a 12x8 run.

HELP  Please

Mr.Dad :

If you needed a coop for one rooster and 1 maybe 2 hens and needed it before you could actually build it yourself what would you do?

Dog house (with a swing door entry) mounted on a raised 4x4 frame?

I also want heat...it's been freggin cold in North Jersey let me tell ya.....cold since we got over the 'hottest winter on record' that is....what gives???...

A pen shouldn't be a problem but I'm open to ideas on that too....

I would be thinking to convert something (like a doghose or large rabbithutch)... you can easily insulate by using that floor insulation for underneath laminate flooring...just staple to the inside.  spend your time and money on predator proofing a run/pen area.

To MyBackYard :  Look through the threads at the link below...great info there:
http://p072.ezboard.com/fbackyardchickensfrm5

I have a friend that built a temporary coop in the style of a "straw bale home." He made sort of an igloo out of straw bales and then topped the whole thing with a modified plywood roof. It works great here in the cold as a stop-gap and if properly made it is water and wind-proof- those bales are dense!

Good luck!

-MTchick

Opps, posted in wrong place.  Sorry

Mr.Dad :

Heading for hay bales on Saturday ...

Three of chickens that adopted us ('Lost and Found' thread) are now officially ours...there's more to it...been kinda afraid/tired to type it, what a soap opera.....I should write and sell the story FOX....LOL

Where in North Jersey are you located? Just curious.