Best coup design for small backyard in Central Florida

If only I had a friend who was interested in getting into the chicken business - hehe - trying to convince my mother, but its a tough sell. She thinks they're a lot of work.

Still on the look out for a coop - you never know who you might run into that has something they no longer need.

Maybe an small old shed. I saw one on my local craigslist for $100.00. For a few chickens it would be ok.

Seatrout00 said:

Not yet got chickens - we're in the planning stage right now.

We live in Melbourne Florida and are zoned where we can keep up to four hens - so here's my concern - since I've never farmed anything outside of water (all my experience is with fish) - what kind of coup or run works best?

My plans are to have four "tamer" hens that the kids can interact with and that I can also let roam around the fenced in yard regularly (under supervision) - but the coup/shelter area has me completely in the dark - not so much as for what the hens need, but what would work for our hot/humid environment.

A bit about our yard - the entire yard is organic and full of native plans, oaks and fruit trees - back and side yard are fenced (where I plan to put the coup) and mostly shaded.

Any advice would be helpful - we were looking at some local farms stock and see that red rocks and barred rocks are popular - and that was what we were going to go with for hens. (we are looking for easy going, gentle birds who can handle the Florida heat and give us some eggs).

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I live in Boise, ID but my Dad lived in FL for a while and I know how muggy it can be, plus the fact that it rains like clockwork almost every day in Summer. SO, that being said, you can indeed make a chicken coop out of a lot of different things....a couple bookcases, an old shed, ask around your neighbors for some old wood, go to the thrift stores and look for stuff if you want. They do sell do-it-yourself coop kits for about 4-500$. I only spent 120$ on my hen house (the red one) because my uncle is a contractor. If you know someone who's handy, you may be able to pay them to do it for you. You're getting 4? I keep 5 in the house above, but I wouldn't go more than that in that house. There are a couple considerations for cleaning purposes that are in my design that I want to highly recommend for you:

A small gauge welded wire floor with a pull-out poop drawer underneath makes changing the litter SUPER easy and it makes great compost
A ramp door that can be closed and latched (although I have never closed mine yet)
PLENTY of ventilation, especially where you are located
A walk-in chainlink run is awesome and waaaay worth it, you do not want to have to crouch down, I had a short run at the beginning and it was a PAIN

As far as bird-types and tameness....I have a variety in my flock but I can say that the Barred Rocks are great birds, they are usually calm, nonflighty and friendly. My Rhode Island Red is the stinker of my hens, so I personally wouldn't recommend them but she is agood layer and other people on here love them. My Silver Laced Wyandotte is a BEAUTIFUL bird and also quite calm. I also highly recommend Americaunas or Easter Eggers, they have great personalities, are boisterous and tough but extremely gentle, mine is a super friendly bird and she lays green eggs! Another great egg layer is the Leghorn and they are super hardy in hot climates because they have thinner bodies and large combs. I have A Leghorn and she is a sweet girl, she is high on the pecking order and doesn' take crap, but she's a friendly chicken. A lot of people have trouble with Leghorns being flighty and or mean, but I haven't seen this in mine and my suspicion is that it's because I only own one....they tend to seem nastier in groups. I recommend them, they are great layers of white eggs but they can be noisy....my other breeds are fairly quiet. All of these breeds are egg-laying machines so if that is your purpose they are great. I also picked them because they all lay different colors of eggs and I wanted variety.

Lastly, this site is CHOCK FULL of info in the learning center about coop designs, what to feed, types of chickens and their best purposes, illnesses and injuries and even listings on where to purchase birds....I highly recommend you check these sources, chickens are a lot of fun and the work load is minimal once you get set up. Good luck! And....

I live in north polk county, fl. I used free pallets we got from an Orlando pallet company. Screwed them together for the walls and stapled hardware cloth to the outside. I think in total I spent less than $50 on the whole thing, including screws, 2x4s for roof supports, and the tarp for the roof. I used PVC I already had and hardware cloth to make my door.

mixedflockmomma said:

I live in north polk county, fl. I used free pallets we got from an Orlando pallet company. Screwed them together for the walls and stapled hardware cloth to the outside. I think in total I spent less than $50 on the whole thing, including screws, 2x4s for roof supports, and the tarp for the roof. I used PVC I already had and hardware cloth to make my door.

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Do you have pics???

http://thecitychicken.com/tractors.html
I suggest that you and your family look closely at this site. It will help you decide on what to do. Also check out the Hen House Gallery for building ideas.

To locate building materials. I would make this into a scavenger hunt for all the family to become active in. I would visit construction sites, scrap yards, 2nd hand stores, recycle businesses, etc. to find lumber, old windows, doors, roofing materials, paint and other building materials to use to build the hen house or chicken tractor.

Concerning heat and humidity problems: I would suggest that you place an occelating ( probably mis spelled) fan or small window fan blowing air in the direction of your birds to help cool them down. Not directly on them.

Now if I planned to let the chickens just free range in my back yard I would provide them with a predator proof area to escape to when needed. Henhouse, chicken tractor dog run, or a fenced in tractor area I could move around when needed.

Suggestion: I would construct my chicken tractor with 4 seperate nest boxes areas at the rear side, one for each hen to use to lay her eggs in. Also I would put an access door at the back of each of these nesting areas so I could collect the eggs and clean out the nest boxes as needed without having to disturb the chickens without having to walk in their pen area. I would build roosting bars, keeping them all at the same height on the oppisite end of the nesting boxes. Hens will sometimes fight to see which one gets the highest roosting spot. I would build a lockable doorway leading out so the hens could get out to free range.

Now I would build a fenced in tractor maybe 4 feet wide and 12 feet long I could roll anywhere I wanted. Maybe with a tarp over the top to provide shade for the hens. I would build one end of this to accept the door from the chicken tractor and then move the Chicken tractor to the open end of the fenced in tractor and open the door so the chickens can forage, till (scratch) and ferterlize the soil in that area only. Be sure that you cover the top of this with either netting or chicken wire to keep birds of prey out. You could do the same for the bottom to keep digging predators out.

Now when the chickens and tilled and ferterlized that area I would just cover the area with fresh hay and let them do it all over a gain. Do this several times and you will have an excellent garden bed to grow veggies and herbs in. Just relocate the Fenced in tractor and the Chicken Tractor to another area and start the process all over.

Like I said before make the getting of building supplies into a scavanger hunt the entire family can become involved in. You will be making some great memories.

Best wishes,
Rodney in Dillon South Carolina

urb2165 said:

http://thecitychicken.com/tractors.html
I suggest that you and your family look closely at this site. It will help you decide on what to do. Also check out the Hen House Gallery for building ideas.

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I agree, http://thecitychicken.com/tractors.html is a very good place for ideas as well https://www.backyardchickens.com/atype/2/Coops

These are some of my juvenile BO's My husband built this chicken tractor. We do live in North Central Florida. There is a nest box for the birds. The wheels are up currently in the storage position. The wheels go down and under so we can move the chicken tractor around. As urb2165 said you can make a project and pretty much build anything you want. The only thing I don't agree on is a nest box for each bird. In my coops I have the capacity of 4 or 5 birds per nest box. Most of the time the birds prefer to lay in certain boxes so you can have as many as a half dozen or more eggs in one nest box and none in another. Good luck and have fun...


Here are some of my nest boxes when they were new.




This was our original coop.


Here are our coops now.


This is our juvenile coop. We have made their pen a lot bigger since this picture was taken.

I'm in the coop building process. It has a four by seven floor, one large patio door glass panel, half inch hardware cloth, PT plywood roof with shingles my neighbor was hiding.