Roos' Roost

Recently my husband and I moved to a new home on 4 acres at 7,800 ft. in the mountains above Boulder Colorado. On the northeast side of the house there was an existing dog yard was over 6 foot high and chain link fenced. It was a fairly big yard and I immediately new this would be my chicken yard and we set out to build the coop within the fenced yard. I had looked at a lot of coop designs and zeroed in on the "Garden Coop" and "Wichita Coop" designs. This coop is a little of both but not built to any plans. It was designed as we went. My husband is a carpenter and so off we went to Home Depot for the first of many many trips for materials. The roof is the same as the "Garden Coop" but with a full metal roof. The structure is 4x4's and landscape timbers for the base. The coop needed to be able to withstand the high winds and possible deep snow loads that we experience at this elevation. Digging is hard and so we build it only a bit into the ground. We lined the bottom inside with hardware cloth instead of on the outside dug down. We then filled the bottom with rocks and then dirt that packed down well as we continued to complete the coop and run. Once the coop was done we filled the rest of the bottom with sand. The window was picked up at a recycle center for $15. The siding was the best find at Home Depot. It is beetle kill pine and just beautiful as well as being a bit cheaper that clear pine.









Having the underside of the coop open didn't give enough wind protection when the girls are in the coop and run so a solution was to put polycarbonate roofing under just the coop. I also purchased clear polycarbonate roofing for the lower half of the run to put on once winter is upon us. It should help keep the wind out and provide a break for blowing snow also.