post your chicken coop pictures here!

[TJordan]

So many wonderful coops.  Wow!  I think I might have coop envy.  Is that possible? 

Has to be... And it's very contagious.... :yiipchick

In fact I've bugged my husband so much I think he's getting sick of me asking... Today he told me that he will build my new coop... Only after I get over this terrible flu like cough and such I've been fighting for a month... Like he thinks I can snap my fingers and feel better...

 

[jtbass2756]

Has to be... And it's very contagious....

In fact I've bugged my husband so much I think he's getting sick of me asking... Today he told me that he will build my new coop... Only after I get over this terrible flu like cough and such I've been fighting for a month... Like he thinks I can snap my fingers and feel better...

Take care of yourself...I developed a cough before Christmas and didn't get rid of it until almost spring. All while I was going thru pulmonologists,etc..my dh was trying to blame my chickens..so I would have to get rid of them!! Took a trip out to OK to visit family....I still had it while I was gone LOL...so the dr. said it wasn't my chickens!!!!!

 

[shelldero]

Love this. Where in Tx are you. I'm out of Shreveport. Cute as a button

Linda, we are in Nederland, just a stone's throw from the LA border. I have a cousin in Shreveport (who recently started his own coop), and our first child was born on the banks of the Mississippi in Baton Rouge My little Swamp Baby.

 

[bruceha2000]

Has to be... And it's very contagious....

In fact I've bugged my husband so much I think he's getting sick of me asking... Today he told me that he will build my new coop... Only after I get over this terrible flu like cough and such I've been fighting for a month... Like he thinks I can snap my fingers and feel better...

Um, YOU have to be healthy before HE builds the coop? What sort of logic is that??

 

[TJordan]

Take care of yourself...I developed a cough before Christmas and didn't get rid of it until almost spring. All while I was going thru pulmonologists,etc..my dh was trying to blame my chickens..so I would have to get rid of them!!  Took a trip out to OK to visit family....I still had it while I was gone LOL...so the dr. said it wasn't my chickens!!!!!    

Shhhhh... Don't mention the chickens as a possibility... My husband will cook them!!! lol....
I guess I do need to try to get to the dr soon though if I can't shake this....

 

[thand141]

here is our coop and run in upstate NY! (an hour North of Utica)







you can see my slide up door that you can open and close from outside the hen house section with the red handle, it has the 2x4 base plate for the outside wall stops drafts and will keep predators from getting their paws under the door to lift it from the outside.



the chicken ladder on the left has a poop slide attached so I can just scrape the nights poop into easy to empty bins.





my newly completed oyster shell feeder made from an old clay pipe and 5 gallon bucket lid.



the permanent run of chain link, and we just made a mobile run from deer netting and fiberglass posts so they can go on the grassy yard and we can move it before they destroy all the grass.

 

[TJordan]

Very nice... Is that sand or sweet PDZ in there? I've been telling my husband that we need to utilize it in the new coop... IF he ever gets it built... And I love the poop catch....

 

[perchie.girl]

Quote:
Get to the doctor. A cold that lingers like that needs special attention.... more than I care to admitt over the past few years I have had to get a Breathing treatment to get a cold that has dug in like that to release the junk building in your lungs. Otherwise a secondary infection gets in there and it turns into Bronchitis The next step from Bronchitis is Pneumonia.

I am allergic to molds.... Not chickens.

deb

 

[jtbass2756]

Get to the doctor. A cold that lingers like that needs special attention.... more than I care to admitt over the past few years I have had to get a Breathing treatment to get a cold that has dug in like that to release the junk building in your lungs. Otherwise a secondary infection gets in there and it turns into Bronchitis The next step from Bronchitis is Pneumonia.

I am allergic to molds.... Not chickens.

deb

Deb, you are so right.. I have asthma and I'm so careful when cleaning the coops, etc. I don't use the cheap masks,,,I go for the heavier duty ones. It doesn't take much for me to get bronchitis, especially in the winter.

 

[Sylvester017]

For the roof in the past I have only used tarps. Stretched so the water will not collect. The most successful was my last set up. Tarps only the width of each partition which is six feet. stretched from six foot out and down the back where they roost. I purposely stretched them with PVC pipe over and under and set at a small angle. The water could not collect. And Yep the floor of the coop was wet... I used Rice hulls which handle moisture better than any bedding I ever used before.



this is my house the day it closed Escrow in 2003... Once the poultry house is done it will reside visually between those two trees Which puts it in the foreground about a hundred feet away from the house. The ground is Solid Decomposed granite and in that particular area has not been disturbed so its very hard. To give you an idea for scale the rock in the foreground is the right height for sitting.




Her new shelter is rated for 100 MPH winds. Custom built by the same company that built the pipe corral.... Able to withstand a 2000 pound horse messin with it. I wish I could afford them to build the coop.... Sigh. It would be Awesome. They do enclosures for everything from Bears to Aviarys too.

I used to raise parakeets and finches and have about fifty linear feet of Aviary enclosure wire. That stuff is 12 gauge and the spacing is 1/2 by 3. its self supporting too. you can make aviaries as wide as six feet and as long as twelve without additional support if you use the wire top and bottom as well.

http://www.kwcages.com/wingzcatalog/00010.html

deb

We've been using tarps the past 3 years ourselves. The sun beats them up pretty bad and then the Santa Ana winds completely rip them away at 100 mph gusts. But we only go through a couple tarps a year by using them with ball ties instead of expensive pop-up canopy replacements. Our canopy frame legs are buried a foot inground so the frames withstand the winds - much sturdier than carport frames - our canopy has been through 6 Santa Ana winds that pretty much tore up the back yard with flying tree logs thrown into our yard from the massive freeway trees but the canopy frame is still standing unphased! The canopy provides shade in the summer sun and cover from rain over a raised 4x4 dust bath area. In the summer we turn on the Orbit Mister under the canopy and the birds stay under it most of the day. We also scatter a couple doghouses, bench, old wheelbarrow, and boards on cinderblocks to provide added hiding/snoozing places from aerial predators. Our temps have been as high as 109 this week and humid to boot - Ugh! We have another pop-up canopy over the coop to protect from sun and rain.

We're at the base of a canyon so from centuries of runoff melting snow and hard rains we find our soil very full of rocks and it packs hard in this drought. However a slow watering softens it enough to shovel and garden. For vegetables we built a couple raised garden beds to use compost and vermiculite to have soil fertile enough for vegetable roots to grow. Love the boulders in your yard. There are a lot of boulders used for garden decor around our city but nothing quite THAT large.

Draft horses are so sweet. My Pops had one for a year to plow the property until he purchased a surplus WWII Caterpillar tractor and the horse was sold. I remember the horse was massive! I had fun playing in the Stagecoach and Buckboard Wagon that came with the folks' property. It used to be an old turn-of-the-century stagecoach stop with old steamer trunks full of books, letters, 3D hand viewer and photos, and loads of leather/tack/tool antiquities hanging on the barn walls. What a treasure now that I reflect back on those days! The farm was a fun place for kids with all sorts of livestock and poultry and orchards. The property in Vista was expensive to run and cost more to maintain than it returned and folks happily sold it after 20 years.

We went through dogs, cats, parrots, and English budgies over the last 30 years. But chickens are by far our favourite combo of utility and pets - they're smarter than we ever thought. My DH can't even think of eating any of our birds, not even the mean ones - he finds homes for them instead! Sadly we didn't heed warnings about mixing bantams with LF and had to rehome some bully breeds. There are non-combative breeds and there are assertive-aggressive breeds and we found out the hard way that you don't mix the two different temperaments. We opted for a peaceful temperament flock rather than a "colorful" eggbasket. We now limit ourselves to the non-combatives like Silkies, Houdans, Polish, Faverolles, Ameraucana, Araucana, Dominiques, Breda, Cochin. We had to decide if we wanted dual-purpose/egg-layers or peaceable pets and we opted for the non-combative breeds. After having to rehome a mean Marans and two cannibalistic Leghorns that kept attacking the gentler breeds is when we realized not all chicken breeds are the same. RIR, NHR, BR, Wyan, Marans, Leg, Minorca, Andalusian, Ancona, Buttercups, Empordanesa, Penes, Java and just about all the dual-purpose breeds are ok to keep together but mixing these assertive breeds into a non-combative flock is not fair to the gentler breeds. Sussex, Brahma, Jersey Giants are considered gentle giants but because of their huge size would not mix them in with smaller gentler breeds - their sheer size will tempt them to bully smaller birds - it's a chicken thing!

Bobcats, Mountain Lions, Coyotes, Bears, Rattlesnakes, Skunks, Raccoons, Oppossums, Rats, Field Mice, Deer, Aerial Predators are all the visitors my DD & SIL get around their property. In the city we only get loose mutts, raccoons, and oppossums but those are deadly enough around chickens! I rejoice every time I see raccoon or 'possum roadkill in the street!

Good luck on your poultry housing and soak the ground well to be able to dig your anchoring posts. It won't be easy to dig but so rewarding to have the structure anchored from the Santa Anas!