[b]Someone who knows what the *HECK* the are talking About![/b]

[brounii]

It looks fantastic!

The only thing I would say, would be to make the run a little bigger. 72 square feet will be a little tight for eight birds. We have an 8x12 for our 8 Barred Rocks and it works well, but after seeing them all grown, I probably would have built ours a little bigger as well. Your design is very similar to ours, except ours doesn't go down to the ground. Check out our BYC page if you'd like to see it.

Welcome to BYC

I'm sure you'll do great!

 

[chics in the sun]

What part of the country are you in? As teach1rusl pointed out, you may need more ventilation - is that an open area along the top? If you are in a warmer area, you will need A LOT more ventilation.
A poop board is a tray-type thing you can put under the roosts, then pull out and rinse off to clean. I started with that, but got tired of lugging them around. Now I just scrape the vinyl tiles off into a poop bucket every other day or so.
Great design overall!

 

[teach1rusl]

A poop board or droppings board is a wide, shelf like structure set about 6-8 inches below your roosts. Since most coop pooping takes place on the roosts overnight, all the poop lands on the shelf, keeping your bedding nice and clean. You just take a bucket out there and scrape the droppings into it with a wide putty knife or something similar (takes about 1 minute a day to keep your coop nice and clean). Here's just one example (there are many variations):

 

[Ema]

poop boards go under the roost. to catch their droppings. I have as of yet to still put one in, but since Dh wants to redo the whole coop and move them out of the barn I am nto going to bother until their new coop is built. check out this thread there are some pics of the poop boards used by various BYC members.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=380988&p=2

 

[patandchickens]

Overall looks great.

A couple things to think about (I can't say what you'd really need in the way of these things b/c I don't know what climate you're in or what your coop site is like):

--- You probably need more ventilation in the coop. I am assuming that 6" strip above the poeple door is hardwarecloth-covered opening for airflow, but you will want substantial more openings too, perhaps along with a window. One very good arrangement since you're plannign a roofed run is to have LOTS AND LOTS of ventilation into the roofed run -- that way it gets less wind and no rain will blow in. If you are in a hot climate, you'd probably want that whole wall (shared with run) to be mesh, and some laaaarge openings on other walls too; if you are in a cold-winter climate, you'd want a good sized vent along the top of that shared wall for wintertime use, and some other large openings that would be for summer use.

-- Seriously consider more roof overhang, unless you are in quite a dry climate or the coop can be sited such that rain or winter wind will virtually never blow in from the direction of the coop front. As drawn, you will get a buncha rain blowing in thru that long vent atop the people door wall; in some places this is ok but in most of the US it would be a problem at least some parts of the year. You could also consider a vent cover hinged at the top that opens outwards and so, when it is open, shields the vent opening from the worst of the rain (with some means of rigidly propping/latching it into that position of course)

-- Not sure it's really worth your making an exterior nestbox... it's a lot more work than an interior nestbox, is often a chronic headache being a spot for water/weather to get into the coop, and is a weak spot in terms of predatorproofing too. They only really make sense if the coop is too small to *permit* interior nestboxes. Yours isn't; you can have interior nestboxes mounted 18" above the floor so chickens can walk under them and you will have lost ZERO usable space and have a much easier to build and easier to manage coop. If you still want to be able to collect eggs without entering the coop, make an exterior access hatch, it is much simpler than making the whole *box* outside.

GOod luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[elmo]

Looks very nice!

Couple thoughts. I see you've got a high vent on the top of the front wall. I think that's an excellent design (I have it on my own "dream" coop). Do the dimensions give you 8 square feet of ventilation? If not, you could add another vent on the top of the opposite wall, which would give cross ventilation. I have awning style flaps on my vents, attached to the roof overhang with chains, so I can open or close the vents as needed. Works great. If the window in your door can be opened, too, that would be good for additional summer ventilation.

Another point: think about extending the roof so that it overhangs the coop and run a foot or more. This helps keep rain from blowing in the sides.

The roost you've drawn is a round pole, but I imagine that's more to do with what the sketchup program allows. Your real roost probably should be more flat than round for the comfort of your chickens' feet. As others have noted, most chicken breeds prefer to roost high, and you certainly want the roost to be higher than the nestboxes. A higher roost will also let you put a droppings tray or board under the roost, and still have room under that for chickens to walk, etc. Droppings trays/boards are great, in my opinion, since they let you remove all the night droppings from your coop quickly and easily.

You'll probably want to add a little step or roost in front of your nestboxes so your chickens can hop up on it before they enter the boxes.

I don't see the pop door (the chicken door into the run). When you cut it, just make sure to cut it a little raised so the bedding inside doesn't fall out the door.

 

[elmo]

Quote:
I've heard of people training their cats to use the toilet. Anything you can train a cat to do, you surely can train a chicken to do! Come on, BYC folks! I want to see the first chicken coop in the history of the world with indoor plumbing!

 

[elmo]

Cats'n'Chicks :

what exactly is a poop board? (what does it do? Where does it go?)

Chickens poop all through the night as they're sleeping on their roost. A poop tray or board collects those droppings and makes them easy to remove.

Here's mine:

I use plastic boot trays held up on shelf supports. The trays are light and easy to carry out to my composter and dump. Most of the droppings roll right off the plastic. I use an old garden trowel to scrape off the cecal poops. Then I hose the trays clean and replace in my coop.

Other folks use a board and just scrape the droppings off it into a bucket.

In my opinion, poop boards/trays are right up there alongside sliced bread as a great invention.​

 

[elmo]

Quote:
Good point. Sheet goods come in 4' x 8' dimensions. You might as well make the coop 8' by 8' and the run 8' by 16'. Less cutting!

 

[Schroeder]

I have a 6x6 coop with a much larger run. Eight LF chickens are the MAXIMUM you'll want, and with that many I'd highly recommend the poop board. I know many before me have said this, but I think you'll regret not going 8x8 if you have the space. Don't forget the depth of the bedding issue when you install the door. Rather than placing it 8 to 10 inches above the floor, I recommend an outward-opening door, with a removable board inside at the base plate for easier cleaning of the bedding material.