A cool retreat for hot chicks

[Badgermole]

Hello everybody, I've wanted to make a new coop for my chooks for a while. I've recently discovered sketchup and had some fun playing around with making a little house for them, partly based on ones I've read about on here, but I'd like some input from people who've been there, done that, and made the mistakes. I have a lot of different breeds I would like to keep, so I'm trying to design a coop that will be suitable for heavy breeds and bantams and everything in between. I have two hens at the moment, and the maximum I can keep is twelve. So I figure I'll build it to hold twelve, just in case I get greedy.

Perth has a Mediterranean climate. Winter temperatures are lovely, usually don't get lower than 5°c/40°f at night. So I've never had to worry about keeping the kids warm or their water unfrozen. The real issue is the regular above 40°c/100°f days we get in summer. I'd like some advice on where to put windows to maximise the potential of the afternoon sea breeze from the southwest, to cool the coop before bedtime.

I want to put insulation in the walls, but I'm hesitant because I have read it can make mite infestations harder to get rid of. Then again, if I could make a seamless interior for ease of cleaning, that would be ideal. Storage is another thing I'd like to add somewhere, though not really important. Would putting cupboards under the poop board be a terrible mistake? Also I keep forgetting about nest boxes, just because I haven't seen an egg in weeks...I think I'll mount them on the outside, under the front window and poop board, for ease of collecting.

Front view, minus wall:

with wall:

(I'm working in metric, and the dimensions of this design translate to about 6.2' x 7.8'. But feel free to pretend it's a 6x8 and give measurements in inches, I can work with those!)

Back view:


Thanks for reading my scattered thoughts, any advice you can give would be much appreciated!

EDIT:
Here's the roof orientation, the mesh bits are just a panel under the overhang, where they wouldn't get rain coming in.

 

[rosemarythyme]

I'd do storage externally so you don't eat up any floor space, maybe mount an outdoor friendly cabinet or storage chest to an outside wall.

Are the poop boards and short side roost going to be removable? I personally wouldn't want my clean out doors opening right into a roost bar and boards. Or wait... you have a second human door too?

To take advantage of breezes from southwest, I'd make sure to have windows pointing in that general direction, with awning style covers so in case of bad weather you can mostly close it up to shield the windows from the wind/rain.

Is that back wall going to be mostly mesh, or am I reading it wrong (where it says full width mesh)?

 

[Badgermole]

Yes, I want to make everything removable, if I can. My first design had only one roost, with a hatch so that I could slide out the board from the outside, but I prefer the idea of proper sized doors so I can rake out the floor that way as well. And in the end I guess the L shaped roost kind of defeats that purpose anyway.

Sorry, the mesh label is supposed to be pointing to the two side walls. The idea with the mesh was to put vents in the spot protected by the overhang of the roof, which I forgot to include a picture of. I'll add a better picture of that when I get to my computer so you can see what I was getting at. It's another thing I'm not sure of, I got the idea from reading up on gable roof ventilation.

 

[aart]

Nice modeling and presentation pics!
I know it would be hard to draw the rafters in to show that you have open soffits,
but think about doing that.
That last pic with roof, not showing same roost board layout as above?
Make roof overhangs as big as possible all the way around. Google fly rafters.
Will coop be in the shade?

Will there be a run too?

And in the end I guess the L shaped roost kind of defeats that purpose anyway.

Nah, you could still shove floor bedding out those big double doors.

 

[Badgermole]

Well it's 5 AM and I just chased a fox out of the henhouse. In six years I have never seen one before, and it's made me lax in regard to security.

It went for the bigger chicken, and it seemed to only get a mouthful of feathers. I've seen no blood, but I am worried about internal injuries. Hopefully it's just bruising, but I'll keep an eye on her. The silkie, bless her, didn't even register what was going on.

I have shut the chooks in the airlock of the aviary as the fox definitely got out through some gap in the coop. That's not to say it got in that way, it just waltzed right through the door I'd obligingly left wide open.

By the way I tried making some rafters. Here's a closeup of the mesh bit I was thinking about, sort of the whole top of the wall open.

 

[aart]

By the way I tried making some rafters. Here's a closeup of the mesh bit I was thinking about, sort of the whole top of the wall open.

Extend your rafters out over walls for good big(12") overhangs with fascia.
Then attach HC on eave/soffit area.

 

[NatJ]

A friend of mine built this years ago in Texas (USA, hot climate):
https://www.shedworking.co.uk/2007/10/poultrenon.html

It doesn't have solid walls at all. The roof provides for shelter from sun/rain, hardware cloth on the "walls" provides both ventilation and predator proofing.

I've used something similar but less fancy in Virginia, with a tarp added to block wind from several sides during the winter. (Winter included several weeks of below-freezing nights and chilly winds, with several days in which the water froze over in 2 hours.)