For several years, I've wanted a coop I could walk into in order to clean, even though the existing one was made for easy cleaning. My biggest issue was reaching the middle without having to climb in which sucked for birds/chicks that knew I couldn't reach them there. There was nothing wrong with the existing coop, I really did like it.
We looked at a pre-fab coop and decided I wanted something a little bigger and a little bit different, so we opted to build.
We went with a 6' x 8' with exterior nesting box. I feel their mansion needs a name, but we've still not been able to come up with something.
Photos of the process
We don't have plans to move it, but one never knows, so we built it on skids. 2x6 joists for the floor
strapped to the skids
Abby, my ever present supervisor
We thought this would be a good choice to put down over the floor. I clean by hosing out. This has turned out to be not the best flooring choice as NOTHING seems to really seal to it, so the piece to join the 2 pieces together... access point for water. Same with the end out the clean out door. I'm still playing around with some ideas before I cut the flooring out and put down several coats of porch paint.
framing out walls
Scramble was trying to help cut wood
Flooring down and 3 walls up - we had to move the umbrella out as even though it was later in the season, it was still over 90 and hot and miserable in the sun
Found this door at the Habitat for Humanity Restore - love it. Maybe not the best choice for a bird mansion, but it's what we used. I sanded it and then sealed it back up again.
Nest box framed out - now that we've had the birds in there for a bit, I think I'd have preferred to have maybe tried an interior nest box on the wall I'd seen online somewhere. I don't collect the eggs from outside. I'm already inside cleaning, so just snag the eggs while I'm there.
Started siding - after much back and forth and many, many, many hours at Lowe's and HD on what would work and not work for a siding material when I'd be hosing out the inside regularly, we decided on hardi board planks. I painted them before we cut/installed them. FYI - if you don't want to breath in all the nasty dust, it requires a special cutting tool (works great, but another expense)
Inspection crew
ever present supervisor
3 sides sided
Abby checking things out through the cleanout flap
the easy parts are now sided and trimmed
cleanout door sided
don't make this mistake - no matter how much your brain is not wrapping around the idea of how the roof will work... for whatever reason, I couldn't fathom how I'd have the roof work to have a small porch without having the 2x4 extended out to the length I wanted the roof. Don't do that. Even when it seemed like it wasn't right, I forged ahead and well, we made it work, but seriously, DON'T DO THAT!
birds approved before construction was complete
They've since decided they only want to use one of the bins in the nest box - so they just take turns
And we have eggs, before we even have a roof!
See - that extended bit of 2x4 is weird, but we were kind of at the point of no return
Chicken on a ladder, because, chickens...
ready for painting the inside
inside painted
rain came before we had the roof on and it was freshly painted inside
roof started
installing some screen to maybe help keep some bugs out of things - which when you have an open bird door is kind of pointless, but at the time, made sense!
Abby takes her job seriously
The screening covering the venting at the top and metal roofing added
roof completed!
From the other side
porch changed to a deck and those pesky 2x4s poking out (don't do that!) now have a job... holding hanging baskets. Yeah, that was the plan all along!
So the chicken/duck mansion is complete. The little screw up with the 2x4 at the front for the roof still bugs me, but well, it's a chicken/duck house, it's fine. The floor issue is annoying me and I'm not ready to give up and cut it out just yet, which I really think is just postponing the inevitable and just making more work for me in the meantime.
We ran water near to the mansion.
Power will likely go out at some point, but I had enough digging with the water trench for the time being and started other projects. For now it is just an extension cord. My husband gave them lights and set it up so I can have a camera out there to spy on them and make sure everybody is in after the door has closed and to ensure the door opens in the AM if I don't want to go out first thing. He also did the bird door for me and got that working. I highly suggest an automatic door. I love it! Having the camera made it easy to birds while we were out of town. Not like I could have done anything about anything, but we could at least check. And when I brood more chicks, I'll be able to spy easily on them this way.
I have their food stored in 5 gallon buckets in the front corner of the coop.
I did have a poop board in there, but have lately just been scooping directly from the floor (composting their manure for the garden). The ducks sleep under the chicken roost area, but they seem to be smart enough to not actually sleep under a chicken butt!
I provided natural roosts in 2 corners and 3 birds usually sleep on that at night. It has caused them to poop in odd places not so easy to clean, so working on how to solve that issue without removing the natural roosts. I'm sure they wouldn't care, but I kind of like them, so would like to leave them in there.
We have carpenter bees that love all wood, so we spent so much time and effort trying to figure out a way to keep them from wanting to chow down on the bird mansion. All exterior wood trim is painted with a paint that has some additive that is supposed to keep the carpenter bees from drilling into the wood. Time will tell if it works or not.
It's working out well. I like it. I'll like it more when I give in and fix the flooring.
As all projects, it cost more than I anticipated, but we ended up using a more expensive siding material, buying tools to be able to cut that siding, framing nailer died so we had to get a new one. Our paint sprayer we found was also dead and needed to be replaced as it was just dead dead. So some unexpected things along the way. But hey, 2 of the little roosts were free, they came off a tree I had trimmed up before putting up the new fence.
We looked at a pre-fab coop and decided I wanted something a little bigger and a little bit different, so we opted to build.
We went with a 6' x 8' with exterior nesting box. I feel their mansion needs a name, but we've still not been able to come up with something.
Photos of the process
We don't have plans to move it, but one never knows, so we built it on skids. 2x6 joists for the floor
strapped to the skids
Abby, my ever present supervisor
We thought this would be a good choice to put down over the floor. I clean by hosing out. This has turned out to be not the best flooring choice as NOTHING seems to really seal to it, so the piece to join the 2 pieces together... access point for water. Same with the end out the clean out door. I'm still playing around with some ideas before I cut the flooring out and put down several coats of porch paint.
framing out walls
Scramble was trying to help cut wood
Flooring down and 3 walls up - we had to move the umbrella out as even though it was later in the season, it was still over 90 and hot and miserable in the sun
Found this door at the Habitat for Humanity Restore - love it. Maybe not the best choice for a bird mansion, but it's what we used. I sanded it and then sealed it back up again.
Nest box framed out - now that we've had the birds in there for a bit, I think I'd have preferred to have maybe tried an interior nest box on the wall I'd seen online somewhere. I don't collect the eggs from outside. I'm already inside cleaning, so just snag the eggs while I'm there.
Started siding - after much back and forth and many, many, many hours at Lowe's and HD on what would work and not work for a siding material when I'd be hosing out the inside regularly, we decided on hardi board planks. I painted them before we cut/installed them. FYI - if you don't want to breath in all the nasty dust, it requires a special cutting tool (works great, but another expense)
Inspection crew
ever present supervisor
3 sides sided
Abby checking things out through the cleanout flap
the easy parts are now sided and trimmed
cleanout door sided
don't make this mistake - no matter how much your brain is not wrapping around the idea of how the roof will work... for whatever reason, I couldn't fathom how I'd have the roof work to have a small porch without having the 2x4 extended out to the length I wanted the roof. Don't do that. Even when it seemed like it wasn't right, I forged ahead and well, we made it work, but seriously, DON'T DO THAT!
birds approved before construction was complete
They've since decided they only want to use one of the bins in the nest box - so they just take turns
And we have eggs, before we even have a roof!
See - that extended bit of 2x4 is weird, but we were kind of at the point of no return
Chicken on a ladder, because, chickens...
ready for painting the inside
inside painted
rain came before we had the roof on and it was freshly painted inside
roof started
installing some screen to maybe help keep some bugs out of things - which when you have an open bird door is kind of pointless, but at the time, made sense!
Abby takes her job seriously
The screening covering the venting at the top and metal roofing added
roof completed!
From the other side
porch changed to a deck and those pesky 2x4s poking out (don't do that!) now have a job... holding hanging baskets. Yeah, that was the plan all along!
So the chicken/duck mansion is complete. The little screw up with the 2x4 at the front for the roof still bugs me, but well, it's a chicken/duck house, it's fine. The floor issue is annoying me and I'm not ready to give up and cut it out just yet, which I really think is just postponing the inevitable and just making more work for me in the meantime.
We ran water near to the mansion.
Power will likely go out at some point, but I had enough digging with the water trench for the time being and started other projects. For now it is just an extension cord. My husband gave them lights and set it up so I can have a camera out there to spy on them and make sure everybody is in after the door has closed and to ensure the door opens in the AM if I don't want to go out first thing. He also did the bird door for me and got that working. I highly suggest an automatic door. I love it! Having the camera made it easy to birds while we were out of town. Not like I could have done anything about anything, but we could at least check. And when I brood more chicks, I'll be able to spy easily on them this way.
I have their food stored in 5 gallon buckets in the front corner of the coop.
I did have a poop board in there, but have lately just been scooping directly from the floor (composting their manure for the garden). The ducks sleep under the chicken roost area, but they seem to be smart enough to not actually sleep under a chicken butt!
I provided natural roosts in 2 corners and 3 birds usually sleep on that at night. It has caused them to poop in odd places not so easy to clean, so working on how to solve that issue without removing the natural roosts. I'm sure they wouldn't care, but I kind of like them, so would like to leave them in there.
We have carpenter bees that love all wood, so we spent so much time and effort trying to figure out a way to keep them from wanting to chow down on the bird mansion. All exterior wood trim is painted with a paint that has some additive that is supposed to keep the carpenter bees from drilling into the wood. Time will tell if it works or not.
It's working out well. I like it. I'll like it more when I give in and fix the flooring.
As all projects, it cost more than I anticipated, but we ended up using a more expensive siding material, buying tools to be able to cut that siding, framing nailer died so we had to get a new one. Our paint sprayer we found was also dead and needed to be replaced as it was just dead dead. So some unexpected things along the way. But hey, 2 of the little roosts were free, they came off a tree I had trimmed up before putting up the new fence.
