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

[John Canfield]

My wife and I decided it was time to have chickens since we stopped leaving here for the summers. Last October I ordered the coop (deposit required) with expected delivery of the kit late March. That got delayed due to various factors but the two pallets (1200 pounds) finally arrived about three weeks ago and I got to work right away. Our pullets were getting too large for my brooder build so I was anxious to relo them into their new housing. I'll put up more pix a bit later...

My buddy Tony assisting

Tony and Danny assisting (actually I'm assisting them!)

Me in the foreground - happy, happy, happy

Walls are up! Next are the roof rafters

 

[sourland]

Keep it coming ! Subscribed.

 

[Iluveggers]

 

[John Canfield]

Another day of not completing everything I had on my list but that's usually how it works around here. However, the plumbing is complete - I have two faucets on each side of the coop.

I bought Carolina Coops heated water bar drinker system with the 50 gallon plastic tank and hooked everything up according to the video instructions and lucky me, the tank's pre-installed plastic female bulkhead fitting is leaking. Obviously not properly installed by whomever made the tank (aka 'rain barrel') so Tuesday I'll contact CC and see what they want to do. I'm not opposed to trying to seal the gap between the bulkhead fitting flange and the plastic tank but that might not be a permanent solution.

Completed a long run of Cat5e cable from the far end of the run to the hen house gable where I'm going to install a Ubiquiti managed PoE switch to power the cams and network access point.

A few words about the building of the coop:

My buddy thought we should start installing the rafters at the end of the run and NOT starting at the hen house end per the instructions which turned into a problem. There are two sizes of bird blocks - most are 22" long but four are 20" long which are meant to be used for the hen house bird blocks. So I had to unscrew every bird block and swap three bird blocks for the correct length.

Speaking about instructions, there are none specifically for the 8x30 coop which had us scratching our collective heads several times. What would have saved us some installation grief was an itemized list of every numbered part (all of the parts were numbered!), the part description and dimensions of said part.

I will say I am impressed, very impressed with the design and engineering of the coop. Every part fit almost perfectly with just a hammer tap needed every so often to move something into position.

So a couple of pix......

Rafters and bird blocks installed, next is the purlin installation. I used a coil nailer and 1.5" stainless steel ring shank nails. The nailer made short work of attaching the purlins.

Purlins complete

 

[3KillerBs]

Looks great.

 

[NanaK]

Looks wonderful! Can't wait to see it complete.

We like pullet pictures too!

 

[John Canfield]

Looks wonderful! Can't wait to see it complete.

We like pullet pictures too!

Tomorrow is the big day when we open the door to the hen house from the run and let the girls explore their new quarters! We have three pullets that we can't identify so I need to get pix of them here for an ID.

 

[UThobbyfarmer]

This looks amazing! Congratulations on such a beautiful coop.

I’ve always wanted a Carolina Coop. My husband just said we could get one and the wait is 5+ months. I’m still deciding if it’s worth it or not.

 

[John Canfield]

This looks amazing! Congratulations on such a beautiful coop.

I’ve always wanted a Carolina Coop. My husband just said we could get one and the wait is 5+ months. I’m still deciding if it’s worth it or not.

Thanks!
Our coop was definitely worth the wait and the expense. At the beginning I was reverse engineering their drawing for the 8x30 American model and was about to start a material list. Dear wife said "just buy the kit!" After some consideration she was absolutely right - this three week project would have turned into a three month project.

BTW, I have zero financial interest in CC nor am I receiving any promotional consideration from them for my comments about our coop.

 

[John Canfield]

Taking a break for lunch. I have the network going, one more cam to install and then we will be able to keep an eye on our girls.

Dear wife bought a CoopWorx feeder a couple of months ago and it's now set up in the run; we put some food in it so all we need now are feathered customers. This is a well designed feeder and will hold 50 pounds of feed. The top is angled to keep the chickens off and is lockable.

We should be able to let the girls into the run in an hour or two.

A few more pix:

My usual attire for spray painting. I used several shields on the respirator (3M respirator with throw-away clear plastic 'shields'.)

Almost finished with the topcoat. The wind was blowing 15 mph+ so I wasted a bit of spray in spite of carefully directing the spray pattern. I used about 6 gallons of Sherwin Williams latex all purpose primer and at least 6 gallons of SW latex color paint. All of the parts except the structure were primed and top-coated before installation.

Roof is on, my friends have experience with R panel roofs so this went quickly. All of the fastener holes were pre-drilled (great feature!)

Getting ready to install the ridge cap. Thank goodness for my articulated boom lift (I bought it at auction a few years ago) which kept me off a ladder and off the roof. However you don't need a lift to install the roof and cap - it's a mild roof pitch. Get a piece of plywood to use while you are on the roof to spread the load. Note the netting covering the ridge.