This is our first attempt at owning chickens, we live in a residential area and wanted to make sure we had everything we needed in our first attempt at a coop so that it was easy to clean, nice to look at, and able to be moved around. We have 6 Golden Comets and are looking forward to having fresh eggs this summer!
The framing of the coop. It is 4' x 4' and 3' 2" tall on tall end, 2' 10" tall on short side.
Nest box side with large window, door for access to the nest boxes, rope and cleat for chicken door on opposite wall, and a dryer vent with fan on automatic timer. Also a vent that can be opened and closed on the back wall.
The inside has 2, 1' x 1' x 1' nest boxes and a 3rd section for the electronics (heat bulb, power strip for light, heat bulb, and fan) Space for both the feeder and waterer inside, so hopefully the water won't freeze during the winter months. Closet rod brackets are used for holding the PVC perches (we installed some screws on one end of the PVC to keep the pipe from spinning when our chickens perched on them). There is 1/4" plywood covered with vinyl tiles for the flooring and also tiles on the wall as well to make cleaning easy.
The screws in the PVC perch mentioned in the last picture to prevent it from spinning.
We made the door on the side the full width of the wall (minus the studs at the corners) so that the tray and wire rack could be removed and cleaned.
There is a 5 inch gap between the slats on the ramp and the ramp and framing for the run are both set at a 30 degree angle. There is 22" of space under the coop. and the run is 4' x 8'
We used 1/2" hardware cloth for the window, "electronics box", screen grate for them to walk on, and for the run. The hardware cloth is screwed down onto a PVC frame (we had to add a few supports in the middle so that when the chickens walk on it, it didn't sag enough for them to hit the floor) We added a litter box with sand in it so they can take sand baths and we also spread a little sand across the floor for easy clean up.
The finished coop from the back side.
Finished front side. The tires are only placed on their carriage bolt axles when we are moving it, we remove the tires when it is stationary to keep the axle from having too much stress on it and to keep from having a gap under the framing for the run as well. When we do move it, it is a 2 person job to have one person lift up on the coop and the other person put the tire on the axle. It moves quite easily by lifting the run side and pushing or pulling it like a wheel barrow.
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