Because we wanted to style it after our house (1950's hillside ranch) Our raised off the ground coop has the same shed roof line as many of these. It was really east to mirror it when we added the run. We used the are under the coop to extend the run space.
For those of you who have not started to build yet consider that six hens only need two nest boxes and that is because you might end up with a broody that can't be broken. We have had up to six hens in our coop and they pretty much all lay in which ever box the first one chooses that morning. In fact, though we have a 2nd box ready and waiting they will wait (or sometimes squeeze into) the "box of the day".
We started with three nest boxes for six hens but later blocked one from the coop and use it for storage, the one thing that I would recommend to any builder is to include some handy storage space.
For those of you who have not started to build yet consider that six hens only need two nest boxes and that is because you might end up with a broody that can't be broken. We have had up to six hens in our coop and they pretty much all lay in which ever box the first one chooses that morning. In fact, though we have a 2nd box ready and waiting they will wait (or sometimes squeeze into) the "box of the day".
We started with three nest boxes for six hens but later blocked one from the coop and use it for storage, the one thing that I would recommend to any builder is to include some handy storage space.
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