future coop and run

[Blooie]

Wow! I wish I had the space in my coop to do something like this.
@PapaChaz That's looking great! You can sure tell you put a lot of thought into it. We also put our chicks out before the coop was finished last year, and worked around them to get it all done.

 

[aart]

I found that working on the coop while the chicken are in there helps them get used to you......
.......but ya got move a little slower and be careful where you put your tools down

 

[303hunter]

I found that working on the coop while the chicken are in there helps them get used to you......
.......but ya got move a little slower and be careful where you put your tools down 

I agree, they get used to it. I've got an Angora rabbit that grew up with my chickens, and still stays with them. When he hears a hammer, he comes hopping to the sound!

 

[PapaChaz]

Yayy chicks out of the house!!! That's one of the best days...then you find you kind of miss them(a little bit).

You might want to think about constructing a temporary wall, I found it to be very handy.
This is how I did it:
Took a couple of 2x2's (my lumber guy rips 2x4's for me, the make great stock) 8" long.
Laid them out as far apart as the width of my coop(6') and stapled 2 lengths of 4' chicken wire to them.
I used Jclips to join the overlap or you could use some short pieces of wire by twisting...or a longer piece of wire to 'sew' the seams.
Drilled 2 tight clearance holes to accommodate 2 1/2" long deck screws in both the 2x2's, then just screwed the 2x2's to the studs in the coop.

It's pretty easy to take up and down and has been great to:
Isolate an nasty cockerel last winter until butcher time.
Raise a batch of chicks last spring/summer (by then I'd made another pop door, roost board and run off the 'coop partition' area)
Isolated a broody hen this last winter.
Another batch of chicks, in the incubator now, will be in there in about 6 weeks.




I did end up making a more solid partition, with a couple HC windows, for down low as the bottom got kind of floppy.
You can kinda see it here in the lower left of pic, attached the same way just a couple deck/dry wall screws into the studs.

I love your coop, I've read through the link while you were building. I do like the temporary wall, I actually did that in my last coop, I had it fixed so I could divide the whole thing in half, the run too! although on the run, the dividing wall was permanent. I had an old screen door I put into the middle "wall" that I could hook open.

When I built it, I had adult hens already, and bought some chicks, I had it fixed so they could see each other inside and out, but not get to each other, protecting the little ones from the big ones. when the chicks reached the size they could defend themselves, I opened the run door, and took down the temp wall inside. Then I went into town and took the wife to lunch so I wouldn't see the ensuing chaos and pecking order. Some of the chicks were jersey giants, I think one of them eventually wound up top of the totem pole, LOL

I still have chicks in the kitchen, I went last week and bought some more, they're only 2 weeks old, so we still have a bit of time with some in the house, supposed to get down into the 30's a few nights next weekend, after that I may go ahead and move them out there. The digital wireless thermometer sending unit shows the coolest it got last night for them was 73, heck we keep our thermostat in the house set on 66 at night, they had more heat than we did!.

oh yeah, about the 2x2's, one of my favorite tools is my old table saw, someitmes when I'm working on something I'll figure if it's cheaper to buy bigger boards and rip them down. And for cutting angles that the miter saw won't get to it's handy as well

 

[PapaChaz]

I found that working on the coop while the chicken are in there helps them get used to you......
.......but ya got move a little slower and be careful where you put your tools down

 

[aart]

I didn't realize you had built a coop before PapaChaz!
Is it on BYC?

 

[TheEggCollecter]

I found that working on the coop while the chicken are in there helps them get used to you......
.......but ya got move a little slower and be careful where you put your tools down

haha

 

[PapaChaz]

I didn't realize you had built a coop before PapaChaz!
Is it on BYC?

I don't think so, I was here when I built it though, lemme load a couple pics

that slot under the nest boxes is actually a 2x2 metal tube left over from a metal storage building I put up. I used it as my base for that wall, left it 4" (I think) high, and fixed the whole floor as a pullout drawer for cleaning purposes. Turned out to be a great idea in theory, not so much in practical use! My dividing wall was in between the nest boxes, split it right in half. It was 6x8 but obviously only 4' walls






above shows why you NEVER want your run only 4' high.......



me holding Lucy, one of my buff orps




framed hardware cloth walls. Open under the coop. again a good THEORY, but not practical at all. Wasn't thought out well because I left no way to get under for cleaning, or the occasional egg that was left there......

 

[aart]

NICE!!!

You learned a lot there, huh?

What happened to it?

 

[PapaChaz]

NICE!!!

You learned a lot there, huh?

What happened to it?

yes indeed, I learned a LOT! that was my second coop build, but the first 'nice' one. The other one was plain and simple a 2x4 frame with chicken wire, hardware cloth 3 nests and a tin roof with a 4 x12 run attached. I actually gave it to my son in law when they moved and he needed a quick place thrown up to house his chickens. that was 5 years ago and that's still all he's using, LOL

as for the second one. That big ole house sitting in the background of one of the pics? I pretty much built it myself, on land that came down through the family. Then I got hurt at work, causing me to be unable to ever hold a meaningful job again, (this is why it's taking me almost a month to build a 10x10 shed, I can't work very long at a time) and the credit union that held our mortgage wouldn't even talk to me about the payments. We lost it, and in the process I gave all my chickens to my son in law, and sold that coop and run. I actually made money on it, so at least there's that, LOL

But yes, I did learn a few things. Which is why this current build is TALL enough to walk in, as well as the run! I was going to work on the run today, I have all the lumber for framing, the cattle panels and hardware cloth, but it's raining.......

I bought lumber to frame, because...........I want to spread the base to 10 feet, but at that spread it's only 64" tall. So I am going to build a frame of 2x12" (very similar to chook a holics 4x6 base), which will give me another 9 or 10 inches of height. I'm also going to set some 4x4 posts in the ground at the end, and build a gate wide enough to get my yard cart in the run, just in case I ever need to.