Hentersville

Our first adventure with chickens lasted six years until our last girl was taken by a hawk. In the past we lost hens to an opossum, raccoons, and hawks. We decided to use our first little coop as decor in the front yard and go bigger, better and safer with all we’ve learned and build a new “Fort Knox”, coop and run. We put a lot of thought into every detail with safety as our number one goal and practical layout and ease of use a top priority. We live on a 1/2 acre within city limits so we are limited by coop size and number of chickens we can have. Our combo coop/run measures 12’ x 16’. The coop itself is 4’ x 6’.

This is the site where our old coop used to be, showing the beginning of new framing. Posts are treated 4” x 4”s. The front section is 6’ which will be incased in 1/2” galvanized hardware cloth. The back half will be a sloped roof, starting at 7ft high sloping to 6ft. and covered with left over metal roofing.

We dug a one and a half to two foot deep trench around the entire coop/run and buried our 1/2” galvanized hardware cloth. We attached the hardware cloth with a pneumatic staple gun and 3/4” stainless steel staples.

We roofed the back half of the coop/run with left over metal roofing we had from the house and began framing and siding the coop with left over siding we stored under the house for thirty years. You can see where the 4’ x 6’coop has been framed in. The coop floor and ceiling are in as well. There is a gap between the ceiling of the coop and the roof on the backside of the coop allowing for storage of extra trays etc.. You can also see the drop down egg door allowing for egg collection without entering the run and the coop entry door which is a bamboo cutting board that opens with a cord via a pulley system. The Adjust A Gate, has also been installed and works great! Now we will cover the entire rest of the run in hardware cloth. Any leaves that collect on our hardware cloth roof we will simply blow off with our leaf blower.Storage above coop.

We chose the bamboo cutting board for several reasons. We think it will hold up to weather well. It is the size and weight we were looking for and it was easy to hang.

We wanted windows for light and for air circulation in the summer months. There are four doors on the coop. One on each side. The entry door, where the chickens will enter. The egg door, allowing access to the nesting boxes for gathering eggs and two additional wooden doors allowing access for cleaning the coop and filling water and tube feeders. The nesting boxes are some old handmade crates we had.We will be using black trays for collecting the chicken poo while they roost and one tray under the tubes to collect spilled grit, oyster shells and additional food and water. The doors were made just a bit wider than the trays so I can easily slide the trays out and empty them either in the garden or compost.

We put down cheap peel and stick tile flooring to make clean up easy.We screwed wood stops into the floor to keep the trays in place.In this view you can see placement of nesting boxes, poop trays and feeding tubes.You will find these brackets in the electrical department of the hardware store. We like them because they are sturdy yet loose enough to slide these DIY, pvc feeding tubes out for cleaning.Feeding station and ramp to roosting bars.Roosting bars made so that they can be removed for deep cleaning.

The coop is 2 ft. off the ground. This allows for easy access for cleaning as well as preserves more ground space for the chickens to roam. We tried to add lots of elements for entertainment and exercise in the run and we are all about recycle and reuse as we did with the metal roof and siding. Here is a stump we got from a neighbor who had a tree taken down for our chickens roost on.You can see that we planted grass to give the girls at least a start with some green. There is additional fenced space outside the run that we will allow the chickens in, only when we are outside in the yard as well. They have a swing made from an old screen door that came from a historical house and the chain is some extra we had from our indoor pot rack.There are two roosts here, one from tree branches, the other, another piece from that old screen door. This roost was an old post we hung plants on. The bottom was rotten so we cut the bad part off, recycled-reused and we think the chickens will love it. You can’t have a run without a dust bath. We used the old planks from our old chicken pen. The bath sign was an old decorative planter I painted and we added the wood slice to the top for an additional roosting spot. We use dirt, sand, peat moss and diatomaceous earth in our dust bath.We added a wood slice to the top of this planter so it can be used as a roost. Here is the 5 gallon waterer we chose and our DIY feeder. We raised them both off the ground for easy access for the chickens and to help keep them clean. We were given several wood slices so we couldn’t resist. We had to make a wood slice staircase. I do have to say, the wood slices were not properly dried and several have split so we have braced them from the underside to hold them together. It is now very sturdy but I am in the process of drying new slices for when we need replacements. I’m in love with the staircase. If I were a chicken, I would want corn shutters. So my husband cut them out and I painted them. We added a solar light by the run door, from tractor supply. The door knocker was on the house my husband grew up in and of course you have to have a welcome sign.I have to say, we are not carpenters and we are in our sixties. We looked online, like you are now. We gathered ideas from great people who shared and we came up with a few of our own. If we can do it, so can you! God Bless!