Hot weather barn coop

About a 1 1/2 yrs ago DH & I started reworking our barn into an open air coop. It took a while to complete it, but I loved it once it was finished. I had saved some stalls for future horses, but I've since come to the conclusion that due to my RA, it is very doubtful that I will be able to have a horse again. So, I've decided to convert the rest of my barn into individual coops for different varieties of chickens. Since I will be doing most of the work myself,(just to prove I can do things on my own), it will take a while to complete, but I'm ok with that.

For past reference, here are the two previous threads about my barn coop:

Barn into open air coop
Open air barn suggestions/opinions needed

I would have just continued with the second thread, but I guess it's been too long since I posted to edit the first post.

Let the remake begin...

I started the new project a little more than a month ago. I had decided that I want to have more than one type of chicken, but I wanted to keep them full blood instead of mixing them. I'm interested in getting BBS Orps, Marans (I haven't decided what color yet) and Crested Cream Legbars. I still plan on keeping a pen just for egg eating.

I started work by taking down the exterior walls on the barn. It went from this:




To this:



I started taking the rest of the walls down and putting up hardware cloth. Seems like I need to upload some pics, so this will continue once they are up.

The ac man is here, so hopefully I will be able to go work on my coop in a bit while the weather is cool this morning.

I started taking the solid walls down on the coop. I did this in stages so that I could do it without having to pen up the hens. I started with the run side wall.

From this:



To this. Of course, the inspectors had to check everything out.





Just by taking out this lower section has opened up the coop a lot. I finished taking out that final piece on this side and putting up the hw cloth.

Next I will tackle the North wall.

Taking out the North wall was going to be a bit more involved than the other wall was. I would have to pen the hens up in the run so that they wouldn't get out when the wall came down. I got DH to help me. He really is a great guy for giving me a hand and putting up with my chicken fever.

We took down that whole wall and put up hw cloth. It didn't take as long as I thought it would, but glad I had the extra help.



This is what it looks like now. I forgot to take a pic when we did it, so you have to ignore the babies since they haven't come into play in this remodel yet.



Looks totally different now!

Enter the new babies. I've got 8 English BBS Orpingtons from a local breeder. They go in the brooder while I start the separation of the two coops.




I start to divide the big coop into 2 smaller coops. I put up 2x4 framing and will be putting 1" chicken wire to separate the pens.



Working on the coop is complicated, its all the help you get while working that gets problematic. I put the top row of wire up and waited on the bottom part until the last. Once it was up, I would have to put in the new roost and nest boxes for the smaller coop.


Here are the nest boxes I planned on using. I sanded them down, bleached them and hung them up. I really liked them. They were light weight, and I didn't have to build them. I had planned on painting them, but decided not to. I bought 4 of these.



Of course, my hens would have NOTHING to do with them! The bottoms are wire, so I put hay in them for nesting material. My hens didn't like the hay. They would rake most of it out, then get out and lay in the coop. The few who did lay in the boxes, would end up breaking their eggs when they stepped on them against the wire. My hens were just used to bigger nests. These are 9"x 12" and mine are 14"x17" I believe. I use those large dish pan totes from Walmart.


The start of the new nest. ( I stole parts from the exterior nests to help these along faster).



I used the partitions and the plywood bottom for the new nests. I took slats from a pallet and made the sides. I really like using the pallet slats. I just need to find an easier way to take them apart. Thinking about a sawzall or something similar.



I went ahead and hung up the nest box before I put the top on it since the hens where having a fit. They didn't care if the top was on or not, they jumped in and starting laying. Even Rosie, the EE on the cinder block lays in my nests now. She has never laid in the nest, always the floor.

Here it is with the top put on. Actually, it was easier installing the nests to the supports without the roof on. I think I will do the others the same way.



I'll be back with more updates later. AC man is finished and it's coop time now.

Oh, this is going to be Great!!

Kudos on your thread maintenance and linking <thumbsup>

aart said:

Oh, this is going to be Great!!

Kudos on your thread maintenance and linking <thumbsup>

Click to expand...

Thanks aart!

I hope it turns out the way I want it too. I know it's going to be a long haul, but I'll get there eventually.

I didn't want to continue on the original thread since this is going in a different direction. Since I wanted the links placed in the first post, the 2nd thread was out since I couldn't edit it.

I put up a different type of roost in the new coop. In the old one, I had two 2x4's across the top of my brooder. I liked the set up, but it required me to scrap poop every day. I didn't mind doing it daily, until it came time for us to get away for the weekend. It was kinda smelly when we returned.


I went with a ladder style roost. It works really well. There is never any poop on the floor. I used deep litter, and the girls keep it all raked up. I did have to move the old pop door. I didn't want them coming into the coop to lay and have to walk under the roosts to get in.



The other night at dusk, I was out watering the plants. I heard the babies chirping pretty loud. I went to check on them. There was a couple standing up on their "toy" roosts and were look up at the girls wanting to roost with them, at least that is how it looked to me.

Over the weekend, I made them their own mini roost out of some scrap wood. I went out to check on them this evening, and some had starting roosting on their own. Really surprised me!



Maybe this time I won't have to put them on their roosts when they get bigger like I had to do with the ladies.

Work on the first coop is finished, or just about. I still need to move the water/feed around so that I can put in an elect outlet for this winter to hook up my cookie tin heater for the waterer.

I did have to move the pop door from the original place. It was under the new roost, and I didn't want the hens coming in to lay and walking through any poop that might be there from the previous night. You can still see the old framing.

I think I will switch the food/water buckets. Then the elect outlet will be to the right of the door, and be handy to hook their fan up also.



I'm skipping the 2nd coop for now. I have a bit of work to do in it. Removing the external nest, the roost and perhaps the brooder. I have my baby Orps in there now, so it will have to sit until I move them out.


I started putting up the framing for the 3rd coop on Monday. I have to leave the end wall open so that I can add some dirt to this pen. Hopefully it will be by this weekend. Just having to wait for everything to dry out some due to all the rain Texas is having.




I didn't get any work done on the coop yesterday. I had to take Jack to the vet to get his jewels removed. I'll be picking him up Thursday. I hope he's not too mad at me.



I got the rest of the framing up on the West end and painted everything. I hope it won't look too bad. Part of my coop will be painted but the first one built won't be. I didn't think about painting it until DH & I already had some of the hardware cloth up. I wasn't going to take it down to paint.



It will be the weekend before I can get back to working on the coop. Once I finish this one, I can move the Orps into it and finish remolding the 2nd coop.

Lookin Great!