Welcome to my chicken coop. Coop is located in Latvia, so winters here my be freezing. That's why I have to built it insulated. Coop size is 13' x 9' (4m x 3m). 1/4 for storage, 3/4 for chickens.
I moved to countryside only a year ago and idea about chickens I dreamt about half a year earlier. I didn't have any experience with carpentry, so I needed small project to train my hands and head. So I built insulated dog house. I liked it, dog loved it.
Summer went fast, but I even didn't have started the coop. I wanted to get chickens in that year. I decided that I will build a chicken run first and put there some temporary chicken coop and there will be no deadline for the big house.
All started with plan. At first idea was to transfer old greenhouse frame to run, but luckily it was too small:
Here it all started. Soon I realised that I'm building run on foundation of old house . It was hard job for digging out all the stones. No pain, no gain:
Central pale for holding run's net:
Run is ready for temporary coop:
Time to go for chickens. I got 11 hens and one rooster:
Cat and dog were very interested in new birds:
Little rest before building big coop:
Let's put some foundation and electricity and internet cable (for camera and "smart house" thing):
Half the job is done:
Installing siding:
It was hard to mix the right color. In the end went to dark side
Chief auditor rooster:
Outside work is done:
Making some electronics for monitoring temperature, turning on/off outside lights (front and run) and inside lights for chickens.
Put coop brains inside metallic aid box:
Combined safe area with storage area:
For poop board I use old oilcloth from kitchen table. Was perfect size. Strong enough and easy to clean. Everything is ready for letting chickens in:
First day for chickens in new home:
I didn't like the tube feeder solution, because grains got out and I have to keep grains in two places, so built a better solutions:
Now I store all grains (about 80kg) in feeder and got more space in storage area:
Storage area:
Living with chickens day and night through camera:
Now I have 20 hens and 1 rooster and planning to get some more hens.
Thank you backyardchickens.com for all the inspirational ideas
UPDATE (2019):
Has been three years since coop was built and chickens are happily spending their time in it. There are only few upgrades:
- added small roof over run doors, so the food bowl doesn't get full of rain water when it is raining:
- made modification to nesting box so now eggs roll in boxes. Chickens used to crack eggs with thinner eggshells and other eggs got dirty, which were hard to clean. Of course, chickens love soft bedding in nesting boxes, but I had to make compromise.
- made "easy to install" separate section for newly added chickens. Although I had built "safe area" when built coop, it was too small for 10-12 chickens. When new chickens are brought home, I just install three hardware cloth walls to "safe area" and keep them there for two to three weeks until the old chickens are used to them. As I mentioned above, they have separate doors to small run and they are very close to old chickens
Videos from daily coop life:
Dog saves live of chicken from fox attack:
Rooster gets angry with hen who doesn't know a path to roosting bar:
Rooster happy about fresh grains:
