Bottomless coop?

[drmusic]

I am planning to build an A-frame chicken ark, similar to the Catawba or the Boughton. In looking at different designs, I ran across an interesting one on Youtube. From the outside, it looks much like a traditional chicken ark, but it has no floor except for the nesting box. The chickens fly up to their roost and have open air beneath. If I were to build one like this, I would add 1x2 wire mesh fencing on the bottom (on the ground, attached to the sides) and make the outside a bit more aesthetically pleasing, but other than that, it might work well in my climate (north Louisiana). The video can be found at http://youtu.be/vF8oPtNX1qU. Does anyone else have experience with bottomless coops like this? Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[drmusic]

Update: I found another similar design at http://www.southernagrarian.com/building-a-chicken-ark-part-1/. The author lives in a similar climate to mine. He has not had problems with the cold or with predators. I like the design because it requires much less cleaning, it provides fresh air for the chickens, and the chickens have more room to move around than if there was a floor in the roosting area.