ALABAMA!!

[groleau6]

What is the hardware cloth for? I figured just some sealed plywood would work fine.

 

[DeannaA]

For a broody/juvenile coop, that's a good price. It just sucks when you *think* you have a place for your first chickens and then they outgrow it by the time they're 10 weeks old.

My husband dearest managed to snatch a big shipping pallet/crate thing from work, when a new piece of equipment arrived... He should be able to make me a nice juvenile/broody coop.

My first coop is a riding lawnmower crate. Now I use it as a quarantine.


I quickly had too many chickens so I built a new one. Much bigger.

 

[Tomtommom]

oh! pix please when he is done.

Absolutely!

I know there are other parts of the country, heck even the state that are far colder than we are but I am sick of this darn cold weather!!

I am ready for spring.

Me too! I can't take cold and grey weather... gets me down. I find myself going to bed early because I just feel blah.

What is the hardware cloth for? I figured just some sealed plywood would work fine.

Not everyone adds wire areas. You do need ventilation, BADLY, so you want to cover those areas with the wire. My coop is a run/coop open contraption... thing.

In Alabama, you really don't need a closed coop. You can do a search for 'open coops' in the coop building section of this site.






I have a terrible time trying to explain our setup. Pictures to the rescue! Don't be fooled by the new and white look, that was pre-chickens. Everything is a lot dirtier looking now

My first coop is a riding lawnmower crate. Now I use it as a quarantine.


I quickly had too many chickens so I built a new one. Much bigger.

The beauty with coops is that there is no 'wrong' coop. There are so many cool ways to make them. Folks have used horse trailers, junk cars, old shipping crates, play houses etc. As long as there's enough ventilation and space, it can work.

We spent months agonizing about how to build ours. I'm glad we did, because I totally love mine. Wouldn't change it for the world.

 

[biga]

i'm currently building a new coop. my old coop was fine and still would be fine even with the new chicks i got last week. but after my first attempt at new chick integration, i decided to build a bigger coop that i can partition off and let both sets of birds share the same space without beating each other to death. fortunately i work at a lumber company and i get all kinds of free wood to make stuff with at the house. the only thing i will have to buy for the new shed/building style coop is the roofing and a few hinges here and there. i want to finish most of the thing this weekend but kids' softball crap is probably going to get in the way of that plan.

 

[Tomtommom]

i'm currently building a new coop. my old coop was fine and still would be fine even with the new chicks i got last week. but after my first attempt at new chick integration, i decided to build a bigger coop that i can partition off and let both sets of birds share the same space without beating each other to death. fortunately i work at a lumber company and i get all kinds of free wood to make stuff with at the house. the only thing i will have to buy for the new shed/building style coop is the roofing and a few hinges here and there. i want to finish most of the thing this weekend but kids' softball crap is probably going to get in the way of that plan.

We didn't have our coop planned out that way, but it turned out to be a great feature when I realized we could use it like a separate area. The area under the 'bedroom' is easily closed off. I actualy raised two babies under there until they could move into the flock.

I still want a separate little coop for juvies, because I don't think it would work as well for a larger group of them. Wont cost us much either... we have tons of scraps and even got some roofing left from the coop

 

[biga]

man, i just looked on craigslist to see how much people were selling coops for to see if it was even worth listing my old coop. it seems like coops are valued WAY higher than i had imagined.

 

[Tomtommom]

Keyword being 'try'. Most of those coops never sell. A lot of folks use sub-par materials (chicken wire AAARGH).

 

[DeannaA]

I spent way more than I thought I would buy trying to save on the first one. Bought wood I was told would work, I knew I shouldn't have listened. Then had to buy new more expensive to replace it. On the second coop, I made my plans and didn't listen to anyone else. I looked up coops online and read what people would have done differently to avoid mistakes. I love my new one. So much easier. ANd I can watch my chickens from the house if I want to.

 

[biga]

Keyword being 'try'. Most of those coops never sell. A lot of folks use sub-par materials (chicken wire AAARGH).

oh, i wouldn't even try to get HALF of what they're looking for on clist. but i guess i'll list it just to get a few bucks for it. probably just enough to cover the cost of the metal roof for the new coop.

 

[icandi]

Just thought I might share this. I received an email from MurryMcmurry they are having a 20% sale on their rainbow layers package for the Feb 10th shipment date.
http://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/rai...0207&utm_campaign=ws20140207&utm_medium=email