Last November 2011, we decided to give our chickens more room and build a more sound coop. When we first got our chickens, we had ordered a coop from EBay. Although the coop looked nice, it was not very well built. The roof would leak during heavy rain, so we had to put a tarp over the roof. Within a couple of months the tongue and groove boards started coming apart. Every time we tried to fix it, something else would come apart.
Time for an upgrade!
We started with a kit shed from Lowe's. On Sale of course...
(Notice the Girls are supervising the operation
)
After the barn was built, it was time to modify the interior. We divided the barn in half. One side was for the chickens and the other side was for my supplies.
Vinyl flooring was added to protect the floor.
Then the nesting boxes... (pre-build picture)
Finishing touches for the exterior of the nesting boxes and entry door. The backside of the nesting box has a gate latch at the bottom and the top to hold the door while collecting those precious golden eggs!
A hinged hardware cloth screen door over the window keeps out any unwanted guests at night.
The girls side......
My side....
An automatic door opener was installed. A definite must have....
Old house...New house! Next we added the run.
The girls checking out their new roost. (A little high. We moved it down and widened it later on)
We added a 6X12 dog kennel, but since a pine tree (and it's roots) were next to the barn, we needed a transition between the two. The only level ground was on the opposite side of the tree. To join the two, we made a chicken tunnel to connect the barn to the run.
Paris coming in the coop from the tunnel.
We added an exhaust fan for better ventilation....
We decided to not stop there......This Coop has it's own power supply!!!
The maximum power draw with one shop florescent light, exhaust fan, floor fan and automatic coop door is 120 watts. We installed a 1200 watt inverter with 2 deep cycle batteries (1 from our RV being charged while not being used for camping) the other is a Marine deep cycle battery. The output from the monocrystline solar panel is 100 watts. Since we do not run everything at once, the batteries maintain a nice charge even in the shade! And our RV battery is ready to go for our camping trips.
The finished coop for our girls!!!!
Many thanks to everyone on this site for posting their stories and pictures. It certainly helped us, and we hope that these images will help others as well. All the Best!
