Pics of our new coop! Almost done!

My husband works out alot so he spent the last 3 days working as much as he could. With the temps in the mid 90s and humidity just as high he could only work in the evenings. Hubby doesn't like building anything and isn't very handy with a hammer so I was extremely impressed with what he has done so far. We he gets back in he is gonna add the roosting poles and nesting boxes. Then hopefully he can get to the run after that. The dimensions are 8ft x 8ft. 6ft tall in the front and 4ft tall in the back. This allowed him to use whole sheets of plywood and not have to trim them at all. As I said he doesn't like to build. The front and vents on the side are covered in chicken wire but it's a different kind than the usual. It can't be pulled apart. We tried and it wouldn't budge. Also there is gonna be a 6 ft tall run all the way around the coop and out to the side a bit. My dh was funny. As soon as he finished he asked me if I was gonna paint it while he was gone. Of course. I'm gonna paint it and make it girly for the girls!










Here it is now painted. Molly of course thinks it is her dog house. She is gonna have a surprise when she finds out the truth! I'm gonna add some flowers to the side later tonite when it cools off. It was hard to paint in the heat. It dried on contact.

for not being handy, he did a great job!!!

Thanks! That's what I thought! I told him he should build our dd a playhouse. He thinks the coop doesn't look good because it doesn't have a peaked roof. I think it looks fine like it is. He is gonna add tin to the roof when he gets home. He worked from 10am til 9pm to finish it because he had to leave at 3am for work the next morning.

Is that a Bassett pup in the pictures? Ours is incredibly ornery and loves giving our other dog grief. We'll be having to use really sturdy wire on our coop because of her. She took out the chicken wire around our garden last year without any problems. Just plowed into it with her big chest or "flopped" on it to knock it down. Nonetheless, she's incredibly funny and we love her--even when she creates so much havoc!

That is Molly our basset/beagle. She is only 27 lbs and is full grown. She will be 2 in November but the vet said she is at her full size. I adopted her a few months ago and the first owners told me she was totally house broke. WRONG! She went in every room constantly! I worked with her until I realized that she is too hard headed to learn. Then she nipped at one of our kids so I put her outside. Since Molly has been outside she has not been aggressive at all. She is actually happier outside. A very adorable dog. But as you can tell-if we are outside then she is right beside us. The whole time we worked on the coop she was at our side. Even before we put the roof on and there was no shade she would lay out there with us. As soon as the roof went up she went under it. It was HOT! Molly is a good dog. None of our other dogs would come out from under the shed to even say hi the whole time we were out there. You should have seen my dh trying to screw together the coop with a dog between his legs trying to see what he was doing. The basset in her makes her funny and curious all the time! We also have a 8yr old basset/golden retriever mix, Sassy. Sassy is the best dog. The most loving animal I have ever known. 3 weeks ago something broke into the our ducks run and attacked our aflac duck. It tried to pluck him clean right in our front yard. My dd found all the feathers. It looked like a pillow had thrown up. We went looking for the ducks carcass and found Sassy guarding the plucked duck. She growled at the other dogs when they would get near him while we evaluated his injuries. Once we picked him up and got him back in the pen she followed and layed beside the pen for several days watching him. I think it's the way you raise them and the basset mentality. They are good dogs. Your right--they are very stubborn!

Well done! The engineering is especially nice. Suitably strong for a coop without much excess.

If I might make a few suggestions?

Put your nesting boxes, and even your feeder and waterer where you can access them from outside. It makes life much more convenient and cleaner.

I'd suggest the run not be up the front. That way you can come up to the door without going through the run. And if you put the nesting box access and feeder & waterer access from the front, it's all quick clean and easy.

And consider splitting the run to both sides seperately. That lets you keep them out of one for it to recover.

Love it! My DF isn't handy either... a carpenter he is definitely not! I'm real curious to see how long our coop actually lasts...

Nice job!

LOVE IT!

That is such a great idea!

Really, really nice! Congratulations!