8x30 American Coop (Carolina Coops) build - pix heavy

[John Canfield]

Your kind comments are greatly appreciated!
My brother-in-law (sadly passed way too young) had a beautiful ranch and went all-in with chickens. He maintained a rooster will keep law and order among the hens which I've never forgotten. So if ours is a good fowl citizen, we'll keep him.

 

[John Canfield]

Dumb girls - only the rooster and one or two lavenders apparently spent the night in the penthouse (the roost). He was also out the door about 6am so he's got it figured out. Maybe the rest of the flock will follow at some point.

I wanted to discuss why we placed our coop in its orientation, it was after careful deliberation and discussion between myself and dear wife considering several factors. She wanted to place it maybe 30 yards from our bedroom but that got quickly discounted due to the abundance of trees in the area.

Second choice was about 150 feet behind the house to where we could see the coop from the kitchen window. We wanted to see the door into the roost (henhouse) so that side is visible from our window.

One very major consideration was placement for environmental reasons. We get some very strong cold fronts from the north and north west in the winter so I wanted the side of the henhouse (roost) facing in that direction. I can close the one long vent on that side to block most of the winter wind from the henhouse. Additionally a nice grove of oak trees is between the coop and the northerly direction which will break up a strong air flow.

I was very concerned about keeping the coop in as much shade as possible in the summer so I thought a NE to SW placement would be a good all around compromise and sure enough the run is mostly shaded for the entire day which was somewhat a pleasant surprise. I could have gone full anal/scientific and done some modeling of sun angles, etc but in the end I relied on a SWAG (scientific wild ass guess for those not familiar with the term.)

What prompted this post was observing how shaded the run was in the afternoons - I thought this would be a good item for discussion. I realize not everybody has the luxury of acreage like we do and some are very constrained but even so it's worthwhile to be aware of important considerations when planning on coop placement.

Previously posted pix but it's useful to put an image with my verbiage. The coop run is facing southwest and of course the house is facing northeast. To the right of the coop is a the grove of oak trees which will block quite a bit of cold fronts. I'll probably use poly-carbonate panels on the right side of the run (as we view it now) and on the run end for winter.

 

[3KillerBs]

Dumb girls - only the rooster and one or two lavenders apparently spent the night in the penthouse (the roost). He was also out the door about 6am so he's got it figured out. Maybe the rest of the flock will follow at some point.

I wanted to discuss why we placed our coop in its orientation, it was after careful deliberation and discussion between myself and dear wife considering several factors. She wanted to place it maybe 30 yards from our bedroom but that got quickly discounted due to the abundance of trees in the area.

Second choice was about 150 feet behind the house to where we could see the coop from the kitchen window. We wanted to see the door into the roost (henhouse) so that side is visible from our window.

One very major consideration was placement for environmental reasons. We get some very strong cold fronts from the north and north west in the winter so I wanted the side of the henhouse (roost) facing in that direction. I can close the one long vent on that side to block most of the winter wind from the henhouse. Additionally a nice grove of oak trees is between the coop and the northerly direction which will break up a strong air flow.

I was very concerned about keeping the coop in as much shade as possible in the summer so I thought a NE to SW placement would be a good all around compromise and sure enough the run is mostly shaded for the entire day which was somewhat a pleasant surprise. I could have gone full anal/scientific and done some modeling of sun angles, etc but in the end I relied on a SWAG (scientific wild ass guess for those not familiar with the term.)

What prompted this post was observing how shaded the run was in the afternoons - I thought this would be a good item for discussion. I realize not everybody has the luxury of acreage like we do and some are very constrained but even so it's worthwhile to be aware of important considerations when planning on coop placement.

View attachment 3141000
Previously posted pix but it's useful to put an image with my verbiage. The coop run is facing southwest and of course the house is facing northeast. To the right of the coop is a the grove of oak trees which will block quite a bit of cold fronts. I'll probably use poly-carbonate panels on the right side of the run (as we view it now) and on the run end for winter.

I appreciate your explanation. It's going to be helpful for people reading this to learn from it.

We too were very careful about our coop placement. We don't have shade to put it in, but we were able to use the local microclimates and weather patterns to block the most likely storm winds (I can get strong storms from any direction, but some are more likely than others), and to take advantage of thermal air currents for cooling.

 

[Sally PB]

I just found this thread. What a beautiful coop and run! What lucky chickens. Please keep posting about your lovely flock.

 

[John Canfield]

Added a bit of coop bling - stars on both gables. Also added three hooks in various positions in the run so we can hang stuff to amuse the chicks. Wife bought a small watermelon which should provide entertainment for us and the chickens.

Scout the guard Lab in the foreground. He's not interested in the chickens but our Heeler like to hassle them in spite of our corrective efforts. Difficult to take a good picture at this sun angle.

 

[John Canfield]

Our as yet unidentified cockerel is feathering out and I suspect he'll have long flowing tail feathers. His crowing is still way funny but it's improving. At his 11 weeks of age he's showing no signs of leadership among the flock but maybe this characteristic will later develop.

Here's the boy:

Any other guesses what breed now that he's getting older?

 

[NatJ]

Our as yet unidentified cockerel is feathering out and I suspect he'll have long flowing tail feathers. His crowing is still way funny but it's improving. At his 11 weeks of age he's showing no signs of leadership among the flock but maybe this characteristic will later develop.

Here's the boy:
View attachment 3145725
Any other guesses what breed now that he's getting older?

I think you said he came from Cackle Hatchery, from a rare breed assortment?
Looking through their page of rare breeds, I think he's one of these two:

Black Breasted Red Phoenix, if his tail gets long enough to drag on the ground:
https://www.cacklehatchery.com/product/black-breasted-red-phoenix-chicks/

"Red Jungle Fowl," if he has a more normal tail length at maturity:
https://www.cacklehatchery.com/product/red-junglefowl/
(Despite the name, there is a video link on the page that clearly shows the breeding flock living in a pen like any other domestic chicken.)

Of course he might be an Easter Egger of some kind, since Easter Eggers can have any appearance, but I think that less likely.

 

[Windrider]

I was just going to post the same as @NatJ Unless they slipped some regular chick into their rare assortment.

I would think he is a Phoenix due to the low tail set. Looks like they were hatching Long Tails when you got your rare order! You've got a Phoenix Cockerel, a white Yokohama pullet, and red shoulder Yokohama pullet!

 

[NanaK]

He's a handsome boy!

 

[John Canfield]

I think you said he came from Cackle Hatchery, from a rare breed assortment?
Looking through their page of rare breeds, I think he's one of these two:

Black Breasted Red Phoenix, if his tail gets long enough to drag on the ground:
https://www.cacklehatchery.com/product/black-breasted-red-phoenix-chicks/

"Red Jungle Fowl," if he has a more normal tail length at maturity:
https://www.cacklehatchery.com/product/red-junglefowl/
(Despite the name, there is a video link on the page that clearly shows the breeding flock living in a pen like any other domestic chicken.)

Of course he might be an Easter Egger of some kind, since Easter Eggers can have any appearance, but I think that less likely.

Yes, from Cackle rare breed assortment. I think you have it accurately narrowed down to these two - I appreciate your investigative assistance . I didn't take very many pix of the chicks but look at this one I found - looks very similar to the Cackle Jungle Fowl chick:

Junglefowl chick - I hope!

Edit - here's a link to images of Jungle Fowl