Greetings from Chez Poulet!! Here are some photos of our very first coop. We are newbies at this, and have never built anything bigger than a wood rack before, so we are pleased with what we ended up with. We looked at hundreds of coop photos and coop designs online, mostly on BYC.
This is our "trial and error" coop, a 4x4 coop wth a 16x4 run. It is insulated ( free insulation from Craigslist) and we placed the coop on top of an existing garden bed. The coop and run fit right into the garden bed which I emptied of dirt, and lined with hardware cloth on the bottom.
It cost a LOT more than we anticipated. Who knew that screws and washers are so expensive!
As of January 2nd 2011, we have five 6-week old chicks- 2 Australorps (Bella, Darth), 2 Welsummers (CHICKmunk, Squirrel) and a Red Sexlink (Tiny). Tiny is the friendliest, and will hop on to our hands. All will happily eat from our hands and tolerate being held. They have been lots of fun to watch! And do they grow up fast!
Gang of 5 out in the run- first week outdoors full time (Jan 19, 2011). Sadly we lost Squirrel to a coyote in April. We introduced a blue wheaten Ameraucana, Muffin to the flock in late April. It took a while for integration into the coop and run. She is now tolerated by the girls, but is essentially a one-pullet flock of her own. ;-(