The Disneyland Area Chicken Coop - with photos

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Hope49

Hope49

Songster
8 Years
Apr 13, 2011
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We have decided on a plan for this coop/run. It's to be built on an old "choice deck" (fake wood) deck with the lower deck stripped open, covered, and made into the run.

There was some debate at first on whether we should/could partially close in the run, but it's all irrelevant now. So if you would like to follow our progress, it starts on Page 2 of this thread.

I'm a photo geek, so there will be a lot of progress pictures.

I spend HOURS and hours here at this forum every day, and we got our first 2 babies yesterday, with 4 more coming in a few weeks.

This is supposed to be a black Australorp or a Jersey Giant. She has bright yellow dots below her eyes that are so cute.
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This one is supposed to be a Silver-laced Wayandotte.
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I have my doubts...the ones I see on the internet have brown stripes on their backs...hmmmm....

Do you think I got what I asked for? The feed store said this order came in completely unorganized and unidentified, like had never happened before. They were so upset - the chicks went to the wrong post office (where another division of their feed store had closed down years ago!) and then they sat for 24 hrs with no care! They lost half of the group, and I felt so bad, I had to take a few home.
 
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It doesn't say where you are, but here in Kentucky I think it would get awfully stuffy in the summer even with deep shade. It just gets so bleepin' humid in July and August that I'd pretty unhappy if my only ventilation was 2-3 feet over my head.
 
What about cold weather and draughts? What about rain? You don't want a soaking wet coop. I wouldn't worry about the laying noise, it's not that loud and it's only for short periods of time.
 
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i 2nd that motion i'm also in ky and it's gets very nasty humid with little to no breeze so if it were me i'd have it open as possible
 
We're in Southern California, Near Disneyland. When we last had chickens we had basically an pen installed onto the back of a shed with bamboo roofing and some nest boxes and roosts out there. Trying to give them a better area this time, and we're not even sure if we need a "house" in there like we see, or just make a pen. There is a large tree that will give summer shade, and we're thinking on the polycarbonate corrigated roofing with some clear and some grey. We've got an 8 x 8 area from where we used to have a deck. Looking at no more than 6-7 chickens.
 
we r putting our run enclosed at 10 x 25 x 6 ft...we dont want to be stooping over when we go inside to get them, clean the run out etc..

We also have the clear panels..we wanted sunlight; but we needed to protect them from predators, shield from some rain/snow and still allow light in etc..
 
As usual I didn't give enough info. Just spinning out ideas, and I forget you are not in my head, visualizing...
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Well first of all, the whole pen design is 8x8 by 8' tall, with a 1 foot drop in the back.

Then, the coop would be at least a quarter of that, with room underneath for a ramp up into the coop floor and a little extra area for them. That 2nd picture is all out of scale, and we were just working on where stuff would go inside the coop.

I'm in Southern California, and it almost never rains - but there is a roof on the whole shabang, those vinyl wavy long panels. We are going to close-in a rectangle for the coop house in there so they can have the underneath to run if it starts sprinkling, but not sure how far off the ground to make it - I thought I saw 21", but maybe more?

What are your opinions on how much room full size chickens need to go under the coop and walk up a ramp. How steep should the ramps be?

Our last coop only had a bamboo top and they just stayed on the roosts when it rained, until it stopped, under a sheltered side. Once though, we had one of those every 10-yrs rains that lasted 4 days, and guess what, the coop flooded (lower at the back of the lot) and they can swim!! I saw one swimming!! It was miserable, but not cold, so no one was harmed. That's why it's getting a big top over the whole thing. This winter we had another one of those spells - wet wet wet.

This time, we don't want swimming chickens, that's just sad.

I'm starting to rethink this a bit... maybe it won't be that noisy. I want to SEE them!
 
Well, thanks for the advice here, as you can see I'll be the one doing the majority of the construction, so we've modified the plans. We're now going to use part of the upper deck that is still there and build an 8' x 3' (interior size) "coop" and let the current 8 x 8 space be just pen with all hardware cloth. So the question is now does the pen/run area need to be covered or partially covered if they'll have a fully covered coop? I'll post pictures of the new coop design when I'm at home tonight.
 
I have a hard time believing that making the lower parts of the run/pen solid is going to materially decrease how well the hen noises carry to the neighbors.

Since you are in So Cal, heat is an issue and you will need as much shade as you can get. So unless this is oging to be in the year-round shade of a densely-leafed tree, I would say for sure roof the WHOLE pen, you may well also want to put shadecloth on the W wall and perhaps the S wall as well.

You asked how much clearance under the 'house' part for them to still use the space under there -- as it will be only part of the run area, 14" is sufficient, 18" is good, anything more than that is way plenty.

Good luck, have fun,

Pat
 
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I think this is a better idea than your initial one. For 6 chickens you'll want a minimum of 24 sq ft of interior space and and additional 60 sq ft of run space, so your new configuration is right on the mark. Even though you're near Disneyland, you can bet you'll have your share of hawks and other predators, so I recommend putting a roof over your run, especially since it's only an 8'x8' area. If you make it solid, you'll never have to worry about their run getting wet when it does rain. And, the girls will be happy to be outside even when it's raining because they won't be getting wet. Take a look in the "Coops" section and you can find many, many examples of what others have done. You're definitely on the right track! And you will absolutely love watching them when they're out in their run -- make sure you position it so you can see it from a nice lounging area! You'll want to sit out in the yard, cold drink in hand, and just enjoy their antics!

Oh, and
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