Assistance Needed - Chicken Coop Design

[Unlyshed]

So my partner and I are about to start building a new chicken coop as our current one is a temporary solution that is not the best in quality / suitability / durability. We are starting from scratch (except for the roof which we salvaged off my cousins old cubby house.

I was hoping for some advice on what you guys have found works in your coop / what you now wish you had done / what was a useless waste of time etc.

So far the plan is to have the actual coop be a proper weather proof room (fox proof walls, roof and floor) with windows positioned for adequate airflow. This room will have the nesting boxes and roosting poles.

There will be a pen attached to the coop that will have fox proof wire fencing along the walls, the roof, and under the ground. There will be some more roosting poles, some stumps and some chicken friendly bushes.

A larger fenced off area will be off around the front of the coop / pen. This is to give the chickens a wider range to explore, while still keeping them to contained to prevent them from tearing apart my partners veggie garden. This section will not have a roof or underground wiring, but the chickens will only be in this section in daylight hours when there are people around to protect them from the foxes.

I have put a lot of thought into this, as I feel like if we are going to put the effort in to build them a coop we may as well do it properly.
Therefore I really would appreciate some feedback, advice and ideas! Thanks xx

 

[Egghead_Jr]

It sounds like a good plan. The digging prevention wire does not need to be the entire run floor. It only needs to be 12 to 18 inches out along the perimeter of the run walls. You can lift sod and lay flat or lay on grass and allow it to grow through it. Digging animals will always dig at the fence line, hit welded hard wire cloth and move over to try again. They do not back up to find the edge of wire so as long as the hard wire is attached to bottom of fence and out over a foot along ground your dig proof.

 

[Red Star Hens]

Maybe this will help. Did this today.