Submit Coop Design Pictures For The BYC.com Site!!

[FarmerJones]

Hi All,
Another idea for temporary chicken housing...rabbit hutch. My son gave me 4 bantam chicks for Mother's Day. Most people seem to get the housing straightened out before they get the chicks. In my case, we are making do with an unoccupied rabbit hutch. It is not predator proof and is very poorly constructed, but I have it in the barn, which is safe. This hutch came from Petsmart last year for $100-$150. It has a ramp down to the ground, and the roof is hinged so it is easy to clean and feed the chickies. They are big enough now that when you lift the roof, they can jump/flap right up. Very startling to unsuspecting husbands.

I hope to have my coop finished soon thanks to all the fabulous plans and ideas on this site!

 

[punkydoodle]

this is the coop we just built for are batums

 

[Yankeechick]

We made our coop almost completely out of recycled materials from our property. We had to buy a few sheets of plywood and some hardware, that's about it.
It has a 8x12 footprint and we made the frame out of 1x2 recycled lumber, assembled with screws.

Then we build the house part, including insulation and installed a window that was a sample we got for free (that, by the way, was an idea we learned from this site!) The box for the house was made from plywood, then we cut hard insulation to fit, and sealed it in with lowon (sp?), a wood material thinner than plywood.
The roof is two sheets of plywood, covered with tarpaper and shingles that were left over from doing our own house.
Where the inside wall of the house meets the roof is where we put three 1 1/2 inch ventilation holes and covered them with hardware cloth.

This coop is big enough for three chickens and ours will free range when they are old enough. It has two staggered perches inside and both the door to the house and lid to the nesting box are insulated as well and have a gasket to eliminate drafts. I use diatamaceous earth on their perches, around crevices and lightly dust their bedding to prevent any mites, lice, etc. Also use shredded pine inside house and on run floor.

The coop sits on a footprint of bricks, so the wood wont rot over time and when my husband dug the trench to bury the wire, we backfilled part of it with crushed brick debri to improve the drainage of the site.

 

[ozark hen]

what a master piece!!! love it.

 

[lcountry]

Stupid questions here, but...

Did you all use a hammer and nails or did you have a air compressor/roofing nailer? I want to try to build a coop, but hubby says he'd want to buy a nailer. I don't really want the added expense, if I don't have too. But, if it makes the job THAT much easier then I guess we can buy it. So...

Roofing nailer:
Luxury? Necessity?

And, has anyone built a coop that has virtually NO experience building or framing? All I bring is decent common sense, but no experience.

 

[allen wranch]

We used screws and cordless drill for most and air nailer for the rest.

The most indispensable tool was the air stapler for all the fencing and hardware cloth. Fairly cheap at Harbor Freight and worth its weight in gold !

http://search.harborfreight.com/cpisearch/web/search.do?keyword=stapler

We have the least expensive one.

 

[Nifty-Chicken]

Quote:
Ah... good ol' harbor freight!! I use to buy too much stuff from them via online ordering. Then they opened up a store right down the street and now I buy WAAAAAAY too much stuff from them. Their tools are usually considerably cheaper quality, but the thought is that you can buy 3 - 4 units of the cheap ones for the price of 1 quality item and if you are an occational user then one usually will do the job. My favorite HFT item: (when on super sale) $17.00 pnumatic 2 inch brad nailer / stapler! Here it is on a pretty good sale: http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=40116

BTW, TOTALLY LOVE THAT COOP!

 

[65browneyes]

Okay all you men......you may not like this, but I'm gonna say it, and maybe by the time you get to the end, you won't dislike me "too" much! LOL

lcountry.......you say your DH wants a power tool to assist in the building of chicken housing for you, right? My DH said the same thing before we started the expansion of our run. My first thought was, "any excuse to buy a new toy". And, I was resistant and am still not convinced we "needed" a staple gun for the compressor.

However, that being said, when I consider how much time and effort was put into applying the wire with roofing nails and a hammer to the original run compared to how little time was spent applying the wire to the expansion and the "nursery" with the stapler........ It was SO worth buying the stapler!! I don't regret spending the extra $$ on the stapler at all.

It took at least two days to get the wire on the original run, but the expansion and nursery both were done in a day with the stapler. Trust me, it's worth it, if for no reason other than not to have to hear the DH cuss every step of the way! LOL

You can see the nursery (on the left) at the front of the original run here:

And, this is the expansion with the nursery and original run on the left in the photo:

 

[ozark hen]

very, very nice! My DH tells me that I should purchase only the best for my kitchen...I am a gadget person, not the cheap stuff though. He says he buys only the good tools and I deserve the same in my kitchen.....

 

[Dogginfox]

Here are a few pics of my setup.

The Coop is a Basic 10x12 Metal Storage Shed

The Run is 12x24 with 1'' poultry netting on the bottom 3' and 2x4'' wire fencing on the top 4'

The top of the run is also covered with poultry netting
I dug a hole deep enough for a large baby pool to fit in to give the ducks somewhere to swim if they have to be locked in all day.

This is an extra pen to extend either the main run or the chicks run. It can also be used to connect the chicks run to the main run.

Right sided of coop

Left side of coop. Also showing nesting box 3' off the coop floor

Back of main coop and access door to inside of main run

Chick coop and run. 8x4'

Inside of chick coop

Feel free to ask any questions