Building Started!

[ktomacie]

This is going to be a bit slow going due to weather. We have rain every other day for weeks it seems.. Hubby and I started on the duck/chicken coop today while it was beautiful outside and took full advantage of the day. Little info about why this design.. We are in town and planning on moving with in the next year to a larger property out of town. We needed something affordable to build, small to not over take the area we are in now and easily transportable if we decide to take it with us at the time of moving. This Coop will house 2 ducks in one half and 8 chickens in the other. They will have 2 10ft x 10ft runs hooked together ( only 1 run is set up, still waiting to get the second one going. ) One run has driveway gravel as a base and that is were the duck pool will be. We did this to eliminate most of the mud issues. The second run will be grass/mud and whatever type of mess they create. The coop is 8ft long, 4ft deep and 4.5ft tall on the high side. Its going to have a metal roof, venting all along the front top and 2 sliding doors on the back for easy clean out with a rake/shovel. Nesting boxes built onto the sides 2 for chicks, 1 for ducks. We are planning on adding a center divider to give the ducks/chicks separate

coops but were as they share a run is that even worth it?

 

[ktomacie]

Decided not to divide the coop, we are going to leave it open in the middle just for ease of cleaning. I got some flooring and paint today so once the rain lets up we can work on it more. I am hoping this next weekend we can get it finished up. Hubby is still working out how he wants to make the 2 back doors slide for me so I can easily get in and out of them daily for chores. In the mean time we built larger brooders in the basement so the chicks/ducks have more room.. chicks are in a table I was trashing. We flipped it upside down and wrapped it with paneling. Its 3.5ft square. Ducks are in an almost 4.5ft square pen made out of some cheap wood we had, I used some scrap peel and stick floor tiles on the bottom for easy clean up.. plastic shelving for the roof so my mother in laws cats dont pester them.. the 2 totes are my clean out bins. Also I leave a light on all day for them so they have good day/night schedules. ( we clearly need a barn!)

 

[ktomacie]

Hubby is at work today so nothing to do on the coop but I did take the girls out into the small run for a swim in the pool for a bit. Get them out into the sun while I can. It rained a bit earlier and is suppose to rain again later. I let them fully dry off prior to going back inside their brooder.

 

[birdsrfun]

Things are looking good. Keep the updates coming. Just want to mention to make sure you’re building in plenty of ventilation. Heat and moisture need to escape.

 

[ktomacie]

Things are looking good. Keep the updates coming. Just want to mention to make sure you’re building in plenty of ventilation. Heat and moisture need to escape.

Its done.. been done for a about a month. The front wall has an entire section of screen on it about 1.5ft tall all the way across ( you can see those cut out in the pictures above) The roof line also has venting all around it with about a 1.5" gap of air flow ( screened) and the run doors are always open. We get a ton of wind as our house sits on top of a hill with mountains around it so more venting can create issues in the wet season.. to much rain/snow gets in.

 

[aart]

Its done.. been done for a about a month

More pics please?

 

[ktomacie]

The only thing we want to do later is add more run space but we are planning on moving within a year so it might have to wait due to town regulations.. We are moving out of town to more land and then we will set up a free range area with 4ft poultry netting for day time use while we are home.

 

[birdsrfun]

Very nice. Good looking coop!

 

[aart]

The only thing we want to do later is add more run space

Got any plans for snow load on the run roof?

 

[ktomacie]

We will just go in and knock it off as needed.. It wont get much snow load as its right under a huge pine tree though. I think last year when we got 2ft of snow dumped on us that area only got 8-10". It will be easily maintained. When we move we plan on adding steel roofing to the run so we don't have to deal with it.