building a 16 ciken coop in colorado

Lots of good questions. My wife and I just got 4 chicks the week before Easter. I have been building an Amish
Style coop. I sealed it with a can of foam expandable you can pick it up at lowes for a couple bucks. We are In the springs so not to far from you. I encluded the area under the coup as square footage because my coup sits 18 inch. Above ground. Providing shade is important especially here in the hotter months. Defiantly put wire under your coup area as well as above. Here I'n Colorado we have fox racoon skunk that will try to dig under and hawks and owls from above. And there are the stray dogs and cats which are out when your chickens will be. Plan on putting your chicks out when they are feathered out as different breads feather out fully at different times, to give you a specific day might be good for one breed it won't be good for another. So just watch your chicks and when they are all feathered out you can move them to the coup. Good luck. I will be posting plans of my Amish coup and pictures as there seem to be none available with out buying them. Hope this helped

 

Well I am fairly new to chickens myself but am currently on our 3rd coop. I certainly don't know the right way, but I will tell you some things I learned.

1 - Roosting areas way from the nesting boxes. On my first coop, out in front of the nesting boxes we put a ledge for them to roost on and they did, pooped all over the nesting boxes, tried to add new roosts, they still want to roost on the nesting boxes. Which leaves poopy eggs. Biggest regret I have at the moment.

2 - The expandable foam... we used that too, they picked it apart in some areas and will chase each other down like they do a worm. Although, haven't seen any side effects from that.

3 - Definately need shade, it isn't even hot here yet and if there isn't shade they are in the coop and therefore, not getting exercise scratching and digging for worms. In our current coop, we are trying out shade cloth from Lowes for a roof.

On our first coop we just put up an old dog run and we have not had any problems with things digging under...yet. Current one, we are digging down a trench and putting cement in it.

We havent' had any predators yet, but I know lots that have had problems so prevent, prevent prevent. Old wives tale learned from another chicken keeper...Pee around the coop, the markings of humans keep predators away, now I would look funny doing that, but I do tell my boys to do it if they ever feel the urge outside. Maybe thats why I haven't had any predator problems!

As for how long, I would say that depends on how long you can keep them in their current place as well as their feathering. For instance, your gonna have some flyers pretty soon, so if itsn't covered or large enough for them to really move around, you may atleast want to look at a larger temporary solution for them. I have a horse trough (sp?) that we use for the small but feathered and flying ones.

 

Quote:You might add regular window screening to your coop in addition to the hardware cloth for mosquito protection. Mosquito's love chicken combs and all the little non feathered spots.

By the way