Coop Design Help for 5 Chickens

Davidhalpern2 said:

My coop and run space is somewhat similar to yours, so I thought some pictures might be helpful. The total area is on The side of my house, facing my neighbor. It's 10' wide x 20' long.within that space I have a coop, small tomato garden, bigger raised compost area (chickens are natural compost keepers!) run with outside treadle feeder and waterer, and the two small containers covered to keep rain out hold grit and oyster shell.

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XtremeSteve said:

G​reat ideas guys! Unfortunately, there is a bit of a caveat to that whole idea, there is a kitchen window AND dining room window that would be cut off in 1/2 if you did it at the 6' height of the wall. The bottom of those windows are 4' off the ground, so that kills the idea of still putting a roof up as it will be nearly impossible to clean.


The pens that I am getting are 4' wide x 6' long (I ordered 3 of them = 24') and a little over 2' high with a spring loaded/latched removable roof. Because I do live in Vegas, I was going to add in grass that is covered in hardware cloth for a portion of the run and keep it watered/cleaned via an irrigation valve hooked up to misters that will be attached to the cage/pen.

When it's all said and done, it will be comfortable for the chickens and I will have to do a little work, but not a ton to keep it clean/tidy.

Also, to add to TalkALittle's comment, for ventilation, I will be putting in 2 fans (DC Computer style ones) protected with Hardware Cloth that will be pushing approximately 60 CFM per fan. This will allow clean air in and polluted air out. The system will be powered by a battery stored in the "storage" section I marked on the cross section that is charged via a solar panel that will be mounted on the roof of the coop.

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