michellebee
In the Brooder
Hi everyone, nice to meet you all. I'm Michelle and I just joined BYC today. Over the holidays I had the chance to take care of my sister's family's flock of 3 young Golden Comets, which in short was total fun! It got me launched into many hours of research this week on having a flock of our own.
I've spent hours reading about basic coop design, the supremacy of hardware cloth, browsed many ingenious designs of repurposed materials, aww'ed at pics of baby chickies etc. But I still have a few (probably very simple) questions I can't quite parse out from my basic Google searches. I would appreciate your advice on my general plan as of now.
I am thinking about 4-6 chicks to start, but would like to plan to have space for at least 8. Please see pic for very rudimentary drawing of the coop/run layout. (I'm not an architect, but hopefully you get the gist).
Essentially, I have a 26' x 6' area set aside for them and chose the "coop" space to be 6' x 6' with the day run of 20' x 6', all enclosed at 6 feet tall. We have many predators in the area, so I am basically envisioning a big rectangle of framed welded wire, hah. The "coop" will be predator-proof, hopefully, but the day run I might more loosely wire (thinking larger mesh on the top half) as a consideration of cost.
There is so much great info online it is almost difficult to narrow down my thoughts, so again, I am grateful for any clarifications you can make to these initial ideas.
Thanks all, looking forward to your responses.
I've spent hours reading about basic coop design, the supremacy of hardware cloth, browsed many ingenious designs of repurposed materials, aww'ed at pics of baby chickies etc. But I still have a few (probably very simple) questions I can't quite parse out from my basic Google searches. I would appreciate your advice on my general plan as of now.
I am thinking about 4-6 chicks to start, but would like to plan to have space for at least 8. Please see pic for very rudimentary drawing of the coop/run layout. (I'm not an architect, but hopefully you get the gist).
Essentially, I have a 26' x 6' area set aside for them and chose the "coop" space to be 6' x 6' with the day run of 20' x 6', all enclosed at 6 feet tall. We have many predators in the area, so I am basically envisioning a big rectangle of framed welded wire, hah. The "coop" will be predator-proof, hopefully, but the day run I might more loosely wire (thinking larger mesh on the top half) as a consideration of cost.
- Do you think that is OK spacing for a flock of 8 max? I basically chose the sizes of each section for ease of math.
- I use "coop" in quotations because I don't quite understand the distinction between the "coop" and the actual "hen house" where they sleep and nest. It seems these terms can be used interchangeably. What I want to know is how much space the "hen house" itself should be in a 6' x 6' square foot space. I will keep the waterer and feeder outside the 'hen house' itself.
- Probably silly: I have seen the figure for square footage requirements per hen in the hen house, but how does one figure height into those calculations? As an example, if 6 hens should have 3 sq ft each, would my planned dimensions of say 4' x 3' x 3' (36 ft^3) suffice or am I thinking about this in a weird way? Hah.
- I would like to use this project as an opportunity to learn some woodworking/construction skills, but to be honest, am not at all handy *right* now. For me, time is not the issue, but skill and cost is. An outer enclosed frame seems feasible for me to build, but I wonder if I should try to build the hen house itself or try to buy a pre-fab. Has anyone had particular success with easily repurposing existing "structures" (say, kids' play cottage, dresser, shed) into the hen house and care to share? I've browsed many designs and have been constantly scouring Craigslist to see what I might be able to grab for free, but haven't seen any clear winner of course.
There is so much great info online it is almost difficult to narrow down my thoughts, so again, I am grateful for any clarifications you can make to these initial ideas.
Thanks all, looking forward to your responses.
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