Anyone frame their coop walls in garage first?

[ShawnRich]

Will you be putting rigid insulation under the floor before you assemble?

 

[jbher]

Will you be putting rigid insulation under the floor before you assemble?

Yes we will be doing insulation under the floor and in the walls too.

 

[JackE]

Yes we will be doing insulation under the floor and in the walls too.

You really don't need to add any insulation. The chickens already come with perfect insulation of their own. If you add insulation to a coop, you will have to install interior walls. Otherwise the birds will happily shred it to bits. But, when you add interior walls to a coop, you will have provided a nice hidden place for mice, and/or insect pests to set up housekeeping of their own. You really want to be able to see ALL of the interior of the coop. Also, are you planning on raising the coop up off the ground, at least a foot or two? Again, you really want to be able to see what's going on under there. Besides the benefit of being able to see under the coop, your birds will thank you for the nice shady place in the summer.
Really, insulation, like adding heat, for a coop is a waste of time and $$. I have an open-air coop. The whole front is wide open year round. I get temps into the single digits, not including wind chill, and birds have no problems at all. They are built to handle the cold. Summer heat is what can cause a problem for them.

 

[jbher]

I am not an expert but I see in your Coop Decking photo, you are laying the plywood across the flooring, which will tie it together well. You might want to consider tongue and groove flooring plywood then and lock in the 1' piece. Personally, I would go the other way and the joint between sheets of plywood will/should end up on a joist, thereby preventing sag. With the one foot piece, you will find it will be soft there at the joint unless it is a glued T&G joint or supported underneath.

Just a thought.....looks great. You are further along with Sketchup than me.

Now, if there was only a program to convince my wife that we need chickens....;-)

Cheers,

Okay I tried what you suggested - if I'm understanding correctly... but this does put the plywood pieces at "odd" cut widths... versus utilizing a full 4' width. Suggestions??

 

[chiknhurder]

Being that I'm in Wisconsin it is still COLD. At this rate we won't be able to build our coop until May. We are expected to get more snow tomorrow too! UGH! I'm designing my coop in sketchup. Therefore, I will have a very good plan set in place and theoretically could build the walls and sections of the coop in our garage to get a head start on the coop. Then I'm thinking once the snow melts and the ground thaws more - we can basically put all those pieces together.

Anyone else do this?? My husband thinks we could be setting ourselves up for problems by doing this.

I did. There are photos in my gallery.

 

[jbher]

You really don't need to add any insulation. The chickens already come with perfect insulation of their own. If you add insulation to a coop, you will have to install interior walls. Otherwise the birds will happily shred it to bits. But, when you add interior walls to a coop, you will have provided a nice hidden place for mice, and/or insect pests to set up housekeeping of their own. You really want to be able to see ALL of the interior of the coop. Also, are you planning on raising the coop up off the ground, at least a foot or two? Again, you really want to be able to see what's going on under there. Besides the benefit of being able to see under the coop, your birds will thank you for the nice shady place in the summer.
Really, insulation, like adding heat, for a coop is a waste of time and $$. I have an open-air coop. The whole front is wide open year round. I get temps into the single digits, not including wind chill, and birds have no problems at all. They are built to handle the cold. Summer heat is what can cause a problem for them.

I really think we need to insulate. We had multiple weeks of temps this winter that were HIGH's in the -20's not including windchill - with low's in the -30's and -40's. In the summer our highs can reach the 90's and with high humidity too. The 4x4's will be in the ground and leveled and the reason I have it on the ground is because our ordinance is rather restrictive unfortunately. Our coop height from ground to roof cannot exceed 8' tall. That really has limited how tall the coop can be and how I have tried to think of constructing the base without taking up "height". The run can only be 6'6" tall - so I haven't even started that part yet - blah. At one point I had looked into using those concrete blocks that have the metal braces and putting 4x4's upright in them (they'd be short obviously) and building the base more like a deck. But to be honest, I cannot remember why I ended up scrapping that idea and going for the 4x4's on the ground instead... I am definitely open to suggestions!

My husband can get insulation from his work so I am not worried about the cost. Although adding interior walls will be a pain I think the benefit of having insulation will really out way that extra work and materials.

Thoughts??

 

[chiknhurder]

I was going to insulate mine but now that I've kept them through a winter, I have found that the more air tight the coop is, the more likely your chickens will suffer from frostbite. We had temps to -12 this winter and -30 wind chills, not common at all for Missouri but it does happen. I saw a coop that had half of the entire front wall covered only in wire and facing south and his birds did just fine. They are more cold hardy than many realize.

EDIT - I built my coop in 2 pieces without plans. I knew what I wanted and just started hammering nails. It was built in 2 sections, the base and the top, and then the 2 were stacked together outside and then the siding was hung and windows cut out. There are images in my gallery under MY COOP. The siding was added later since it would have added a lot more weight. As it was, my son-in-law and I lifted the top half onto the base and slid it on and then nailed it in place. The roof was then added and last was the small covered run.

Oh yeah.... since the base was the heaviest part, I used my garden tractor to pull it out into the yard where I wanted the coop. I also used it to pull the top section out.

 

[JackE]

Okay I tried what you suggested - if I'm understanding correctly... but this does put the plywood pieces at "odd" cut widths... versus utilizing a full 4' width. Suggestions??

The second pic shows the way to go. Like Shawn said, you would have a bunch of flex, with that one foot piece of plywood. In the second pic, the floor decking is totally supported by the floor joists.

 

[jbher]

I was going to insulate mine but now that I've kept them through a winter, I have found that the more air tight the coop is, the more likely your chickens will suffer from frostbite. We had temps to -12 this winter and -30 wind chills, not common at all for Missouri but it does happen. I saw a coop that had half of the entire front wall covered only in wire and facing south and his birds did just fine. They are more cold hardy than many realize.

I have a lot of ventilation built into the plan, was even considering doing a ridge vent on the roof.... gosh I would really really be worried about not insulating anything with how cold we get. I know some in our area lost birds this winter due to the "polar vortex" that hit us a few times.

 

[jbher]

The second pic shows the way to go. Like Shawn said, you would have a bunch of flex, with that one foot piece of plywood. In the second pic, the floor decking is totally supported by the floor joists.

I should've written - that first pic I cut the plywood back just so you could see where it lays on the joist. Okay so this is definitely better than how I had it? And the width's of the plywood pieces - you don't think I can make that any more "even"... right now they would be 3' 6 3/4" and 2' 5 9/16". I don't think I could cut it that precise lol.