An addition to our coop

[Jakemedic]

Hello! We would like to add on to our chicken coop this spring. We built it not realizing our Brahmas were going to be as large as they have become and want to give the girls some "elbow room". Actually, we made the beginners mistake of too many chickens and too small of coop. There, I said it! So my dilemma is how do I add onto the coop with the ladies still residing in it. My thoughts is to make the addition, and attach it to the existing coop, which would be reasonable to accomplish. My question to the group is do I need to remove the wall separating the two coops or would it be acceptable to the ladies to have two rooms? I did ask them last night and well, I couldn't get an answer from them. All I got was chirps and squawks. Here is the chicken coop and run as it sits now. I want to separate the coop from the run and slide in the addition and re-attach the run onto the new addition, with a roof line that will be perpendicular to the existing coop roof line. Thanks for your input, it is greatly appreciated!

 

[wrathsfarm]

Cool pic. By not removing the separation wall they may still want to cram onto the roost in the one room.
Are you thinking about building the addition in 4 parts and then moving coop to assemble? It looks like you could build the floor in the run if you wanted and they could use it as a deck until your ready to move coop.

 

[KyCoop]

We just did the exact same thing for the reason of giant chickens aka Delawares. We had built the original coop so we dulicated what we did 4 yrs ago.
We did it in two days on a weekend. We did have to put up temporary plywood for one night after we blew out the coop wall but they did fine. They watched and helped though the whole process.
The original coop was 6x6 so we made the extension 6x6 also with the same roofline.

 

[Jakemedic]

Yes it is a cool pic. My wife took it recently. I can remove the wall siding, I absolutely could. Could possibly reuse the siding on the outside. Actually, I was thinking of making it in 5 parts, floor, 3 sides, and roof. The ladies get so concerned with any tools on the inside of the run, I wanted to avoid that if possible. I could back up the run and put temporary hardware cloth on the open side while assembling the addition.

 

[KyCoop]

We have done so much building around our girls they don't pay attention anymore. I was making eye contact with one of them when she laid her egg while I was measuring a door.

 

[wrathsfarm]

Sounds like a great plan. I would remove the wall and make it one coop. Gives you more options for changing the layout.

 

[Krugerrand]

Yes it is a cool pic. My wife took it recently. I can remove the wall siding, I absolutely could. Could possibly reuse the siding on the outside. Actually, I was thinking of making it in 5 parts, floor, 3 sides, and roof. The ladies get so concerned with any tools on the inside of the run, I wanted to avoid that if possible. I could back up the run and put temporary hardware cloth on the open side while assembling the addition.

If you don't plan to reuse wall, you could try cutting a decent size opening at roost level and above. Once they can see they're part of the group, they probably won't care about what's underneath them.

 

[SandyRiverChick]

My first coop was same size, it was originally a dog house. I used it as the corner of the new build. It had 4x4's as a base so I knew that just framing up 4 sides around/attached to it would help it to be a really solid structure. I don't know how big you want to go but I left the old one so that it's a brooder inside my big coop now. They are blocked off from roosting in there. From the time the babies are in there they hear me with all sorts of tools as this kind of never really ends. I wouldn't worry about the tools, I managed to keep them locked up at night while building during the day for a few days, no big. ENJOY.