Broke ground on house and run (COMPLETED - Updated Pics)

[eds500]

I broke ground yesterday on our house and run. There is an annual urban coop tour where we live and I took our 2 sons this year. Both are excited so we've made the decision to give backyard chickens a try. This is our first experience with chickens though I've been reading about and following the urban chicken community for about 2 years. We're planning for 4 hens, currently looking at barred plymouth rocks. The house will be 4ft cubed elevated with an extension off the back to house the nesting boxes. The extension will have hinged roof for access and the wall holding the boxes will be hinged vertically to swing out for access to clean the house. The run will be 12'x12'. I'm reclaiming wood from craigslist, our local habitat for humanity restore and random findings about town. I hope to have the house operational by mid-july. I'm taking pictures as I progress and will post some soon.

Ed

 

[wildorchid053]

welcome and good luck.. just a piece of advise.... make it alot bigger than you think you need.. i guarantee next year you will be adding more.. they are soooo adorable. we are now building our second coop.. first was 8x8 and now 12x16

 

[joletabey]

And good luck! I agree, make it bigger - you will want more chickens!! They are addictive!

 

[eds500]

After 2 weeks of no progress, work on the chicken house has started. I got a load of salvage wood from my father-in-law which is great. I took the advice above and designed the house larger because we're getting 6 hens rather than 4. The footprint of the house is 5x5 instead of 4x4 and the run will be 10x10 not 12x12 as originally planned.

The basic design is this.. 1/2 of the 10x10 will be covered by roof. Of that, 5x5 is the house, and 5x5 is covered run. The other 5x10 is non-covered run. The top and sides will be covered in hardware cloth with 2ft wide apron of welded-wire on the perimeter.

I've sunk the posts 12" and the clearance to the bottom of the frame is 22". The 2x6 joists are 20" apart which allows for plenty of space for the chicken ramp. The green line to the lower left of the run is the swing out line for the door. The site is graded with a 2" slope from front to back to help with drainage.

First of several loads of scrap/salvage wood. Mix of 2x6's, 2x4's, 5/4 decking, and 6x6 and 6x4 posts.

I'm planning to lay the house floor and frame the walls this weekend.

 

[flgardengirl]

Urban coop tours sound pretty cool. I bet that was a fun thing for the kids to go to. Wish they had something like that around here.

 

[eds500]

After several weeks of no progress, I worked 3 hours on the coop today. I framed the front wall with the window and framed part of the side wall today. The rear wall was framed a few weeks ago. Finally taking shape. I'll be working on it the next two weekends. More progress to made soon.

The peak is 7' and the front fence and rear wall/fence are 6' I have a matching window sash to install on the side wall facing inside the run. The side wall facing outside the run will be solid wall.

 

[ADozenGirlz]

Welcome to BYC!!

Wow, great progress on the coop & great score on the wood! Keep the photos coming!

 

[eds500]

After a few weeks with little work, I got 4 solid hours in today. I've reworked some of the framing shown in the previous pictures as well as making forward progress. I've framed two sides, built the egg boxes, installed the second window, and set the door for ramp. Getting the egg boxes complete really put me in a great position to make quick work the next time out. Still several solid weeks of work left.

Chicken Boxes and ramp door

Side entry door for cleanout

From the rear

 

[cptkracker]

I'm jealous of your coop. Mine's just an old barn

 

[eds500]

Saturday was very productive. My father-in-law helped for 4 hours setting the roof supports and completing the rear wall framing above the chicken boxes. We progressed more quickly than I expected. From here, the next step will be either to install the hardie panels on the house, or set the 3 posts for the front of the run and frame into the rest, or install the tin roof. Depends on which material we get next. Fortunately, nearly all the material used to date has been reclaim from his projects so I'm not choosy about what's next.