Construction of our Coop

We spent about 4 weekends building our coop. It's a little less elaborate than many I've seen here, but should work for us. The chicks haven't moved in permanently yet, and I still need to add roosts and nesting boxes, but the basic structure is complete.

Started by framing the two longer walls on a flat surface... The posts and baseboards are salvaged from our kids' old treehouse. The kids have moved out, the chickens are moving in!



Stuck the posts down into holes dug at the coop location... Wifey standing in future doorway.



Back side completed...


Both long walls positioned, working on squaring up...


Roost/Nest area being enclosed with plywood...


Basic frame complete... Roof is just sitting up there for positioning. We had a thunderstorm roll through and blow them all off a few days later.


Anti-raccoon/possum/armadillo/fox measures being installed.


Sealing exterior...


Hardware cloth buried, graded ground to slope away from coop in all directions.


Added pine straw around the exterior, then let 2-week old chicks try it out. They ran around like lunatics for about 30 minutes.


Will probably go get some sand at the local mine later this week to cover the ground inside. For now we just put them out there in the afternoons when it's warm, then back in the box while the evenings are in the 50s. They should move in permanently in a couple weeks, both the chickens and we will be glad!

We have pretty much finished the interior of the coop, and our 4-week old chicks have moved in full time. They are not using the roosts yet, but prefer to huddle together inside a turned over cardboard box for now.

Here, you can see the sand I went and picked up from a local construction material supplier. It's nice and clean here, but we've since spread pine straw over the interior portions of the coop, and left the "open" portions sand. The chicks love to take dust baths in the sand.



Here I am constructing the 3-bay nesting box. Made from scraps left over from the coop. We painted it to make it easier to clean.


I next set the box up on the inside of the coop, and marked the location, then moved it and sawed a rectangular hole in the exterior wall.


I then used the rectangular piece cut out to make a door for egg collection. Here are pictures of it open and closed...




The last items I added were the roost boards. The chicks haven't started using them yet, still preferring to sleep in the cardboard box. I'll be glad when they eventually do.


We bought two more chicks last weekend, for a total of 7.

very nice! looks very well thought out

can they get up that high at that age? maybe a walk board until they can fly up there would help?

Hey, really nice job...looks very professional. Best of luck with your birdies.

PapaChaz said:

very nice! looks very well thought out

can they get up that high at that age? maybe a walk board until they can fly up there would help?

Click to expand...

Thanks. I think you are correct, and will build them a walkway/ladder. I set the biggest bird up there yesterday. She just walked around a little bit, then flew down.

An update. This weekend we added an outer enclosure, (chicken corral?), of about 35' x 25'. It allows us to contain the chickens, keeping them away form the patio when we have cookouts, visitors, etc, while still allowing them plenty of room to roam. We'll probably still allow them to roam throughout the back yard most of the time, this just gives us the option to keep them out of the way when necessary.

Great job!