Building a chicken coop/run

[aart]

I assume you will have a pretty much open air coop given the heat of your area?

Here's some height tips for coop planning.
Here's my theory on the 'stack up' aspect to coop design:
Bottom of pop door is best about 8" above floor so bedding doesn't get dragged out of coop.

Nice to have bottom of nests about 18" above bedding to allow use of that floor space under them(doesn't count if your nests are mounted on outside of coop).

Roosts are best about 12" higher than nests so birds won't roost(sleep) in nests and poop in them, if you use poop boards under roosts it will also 'stretch' your floor space.

Upper venting works best as high as possible above roosts so no strong drafts hit roosts in winter...and hot/moist air and ammonia can rise and exit coop.


And Go Big ...3 separate sections for Main flock, Growout/broody/isolation/hospital, and Feed/supply storage has made my chicken life much easier. Actually wish I had made grow-out area larger(for ease of tending) and had 1 or 2 more sections.

 

[STxChickenman]

@aart. LOL. Yes, I intended for it to be the coop...but doesn't everyone else getting into raising chickens?

Bresse are good layers...perhaps not the best layers out there but they do very well. Here in South Texas I am hoping to have good results as far as eggs go with the Bresse chickens. Although we can have some hot weather down here the nice breeze off of the bay should keep them cool enough in the Summer to produce well. Winters are almost unheard of here although we had 7 inches of snow fall on us in one day past week! So even Winter egg production should be decent. If the Bresse chickens do not produce as much as I would like, I will add some Rhode Island reds to the flock....they have always been very reliable layers for me in the past.

 

[STxChickenman]

I assume you will have a pretty much open air coop given the heat of your area?

Here's some height tips for coop planning.
Here's my theory on the 'stack up' aspect to coop design:
Bottom of pop door is best about 8" above floor so bedding doesn't get dragged out of coop.

Nice to have bottom of nests about 18" above bedding to allow use of that floor space under them(doesn't count if your nests are mounted on outside of coop).

Roosts are best about 12" higher than nests so birds won't roost(sleep) in nests and poop in them, if you use poop boards under roosts it will also 'stretch' your floor space.

Upper venting works best as high as possible above roosts so no strong drafts hit roosts in winter...and hot/moist air and ammonia can rise and exit coop.


And Go Big ...3 separate sections for Main flock, Growout/broody/isolation/hospital, and Feed/supply storage has made my chicken life much easier. Actually wish I had made grow-out area larger(for ease of tending) and had 1 or 2 more sections.

Great info here! As far as added on sections my plans are to have more mobile cages available to isolate and care for chickens or chicks that need special attention. I like the idea of the mobile cages because I can always roll them into the garage if I need to keep those special needs chickens out of the weather. I also plan on using the mobile cages to hold my roosters that will be taken to my processing area so that I can roll them all the way over there and facilitate the ease of processing. Here are pics of the cage and a processing table that I recently built...

 

[aart]

Have you tried rolling that thing over the yard?
I ask because I made a great mobile hoop run with similar wheels....
.....in the garage it was fantastic, even the gravel driveway it was OK,
but on the grass it stunk.

 

[STxChickenman]

Have you tried rolling that thing over the yard?
I ask because I made a great mobile hoop run with similar wheels....
.....in the garage it was fantastic, even the gravel driveway it was OK,
but on the grass it stunk.

Yeah...I know that it would not really work in the yard because the wheels are so narrow. Luckily, I have a driveway and sidewalk that will get me to and from where I need to go with the mobile cage. Then only negative is that I wouldn't be able to wheel it into the coop area. I can foresee a future sidewalk going to the chicken coop so that I could roll it up next to the coop at the very least. Plus, with a sidewalk, walking to the coop would be much better on wet, muddy days.

Thank you for all of your input...you have given me a lot of food for thought.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Since you are planning on them for meat birds I don’t know how many chickens you will have at any one time or what ages they will be. I don’t know how many breeding/laying hens you plan on or how many roosters. I don’t know how broody Bresse chickens are but I’d expect you to need an incubator to hatch enough chickens for meat even if they go broody a lot. How much spare freezer space do you have so can you butcher a lot at any one time or will you need to space it out. How you plan to manage them has a lot to do with what your facilities should look like. It’s a bit more than number of chickens and square feet.

I try to eat one chicken a week and I have limited freezer space with all the stuff I put in there from the garden. My main breeding/laying flock that I overwinter is usually one rooster and anywhere from 6 to 9 hens depending on circumstances but there are times in the summer where I have over 50 chickens. Some are adults, some are cockerels growing to butcher size, some are pullets I generally wait until they are laying before I decide which to butcher, and some are younger chicks, often with a broody hen. I can have three or four different age groups in there at any one time not counting the adults. But by winter I’m back down to 7 to 10 adults. I get all the eggs we can eat and have plenty to give away to friends and relatives.

Don’t get hung up on the size of the coop by itself. South of Corpus and near the coast like you are your chickens are going to be able to be outside every day of the year. As long as you don’t leave them locked up in that coop for really long periods of time when they are awake the space available is the coop plus run. You are going to have a lot of room available.

You can build those nests so you can get to the eggs from the outside, some people have special reasons that they like doing that. But I like going inside to collect eggs. I’ve found a couple of dead chickens, a possum, and a few snakes in there that I would not have seen if I did not walk in. Building nests so you can access them from the outside will lengthen your construction time and the hardware is not exactly cheap. Just a thought.

You have the brooding set up in that workshop. I also like certain areas set up to give you a flexibility in how you manage them. I built a separate grow-out coop at the far end of my main run with a section of run carved out so I can isolate chickens in there yet they can see the adults. As big as your coop is you might carve out a section in there. With a pop door and a bit of fencing you accomplish the same thing. Having an area like this makes integration a lot easier and if you ever need to isolate a chicken or a group of cockerels to grow to butcher size you are ready. A big thing in building a coop is to make it as convenient and easy for you as you can. Your chickens will be better off if you consider yourself in the planning.

 

[STxChickenman]

Since you are planning on them for meat birds I don’t know how many chickens you will have at any one time or what ages they will be. I don’t know how many breeding/laying hens you plan on or how many roosters. I don’t know how broody Bresse chickens are but I’d expect you to need an incubator to hatch enough chickens for meat even if they go broody a lot. How much spare freezer space do you have so can you butcher a lot at any one time or will you need to space it out. How you plan to manage them has a lot to do with what your facilities should look like. It’s a bit more than number of chickens and square feet.

I try to eat one chicken a week and I have limited freezer space with all the stuff I put in there from the garden. My main breeding/laying flock that I overwinter is usually one rooster and anywhere from 6 to 9 hens depending on circumstances but there are times in the summer where I have over 50 chickens. Some are adults, some are cockerels growing to butcher size, some are pullets I generally wait until they are laying before I decide which to butcher, and some are younger chicks, often with a broody hen. I can have three or four different age groups in there at any one time not counting the adults. But by winter I’m back down to 7 to 10 adults. I get all the eggs we can eat and have plenty to give away to friends and relatives.

Don’t get hung up on the size of the coop by itself. South of Corpus and near the coast like you are your chickens are going to be able to be outside every day of the year. As long as you don’t leave them locked up in that coop for really long periods of time when they are awake the space available is the coop plus run. You are going to have a lot of room available.

You can build those nests so you can get to the eggs from the outside, some people have special reasons that they like doing that. But I like going inside to collect eggs. I’ve found a couple of dead chickens, a possum, and a few snakes in there that I would not have seen if I did not walk in. Building nests so you can access them from the outside will lengthen your construction time and the hardware is not exactly cheap. Just a thought.

You have the brooding set up in that workshop. I also like certain areas set up to give you a flexibility in how you manage them. I built a separate grow-out coop at the far end of my main run with a section of run carved out so I can isolate chickens in there yet they can see the adults. As big as your coop is you might carve out a section in there. With a pop door and a bit of fencing you accomplish the same thing. Having an area like this makes integration a lot easier and if you ever need to isolate a chicken or a group of cockerels to grow to butcher size you are ready. A big thing in building a coop is to make it as convenient and easy for you as you can. Your chickens will be better off if you consider yourself in the planning.

I like the idea of a holding area in the coop...it would definitely make it easier to transfer young roosters to the mobile cage.

I have LOTS of freezer space...three freezers in the garage and one in the house. So I will be able to process many chickens at least once every few months. I also have a very good vacuum sealer to keep the meat sealed in thick, 5 mil freezer bags.

The lot adjacent to my house where the chicken coop is going to be is 1/2 acre in size minus the garage which is in front of the coop. It's a large garage but they will also have the other open space on the house lot to forage around. The weather out here is good enough for the chickens to get out and free range well over 90% of the time.

It's pretty amazing how the idea of getting back into raising chickens has grown over the past couple of months....and it keeps growing!

Thanks for your input!

 

[STxChickenman]

Well, after being sick with a bad cough over the past three weeks and having to deal with rain, sleet and snow I finally got to a point where I can move forward with the chicken coop build. I used a reciprocating saw to cut down the post tops and got the roof work started. I installed all of the rafters a couple of weeks ago and then started laying down the purlins yesterday and finished that up today....that North wind was damp and cold!

It's been a slow process but I'm happy with the way that this is turning out. Here are some pics. The garage is in the background.

 

[Chullicken]

I really like the initial framing. This seems like you could easily add sub coops/runs as needed. Could theoretically just keep adding boxes onto the sides and still maintain the ease of access. Also with that setup, ever thought about adding in a mini grain silo/chute like they use for dairy cows?

 

[STxChickenman]

I really like the initial framing. This seems like you could easily add sub coops/runs as needed. Could theoretically just keep adding boxes onto the sides and still maintain the ease of access. Also with that setup, ever thought about adding in a mini grain silo/chute like they use for dairy cows?

Well....not a bad idea but it's so humid here on Baffin Bay that the feed would clump up and maybe even spoil. I could definitely use a PVC type feeder so that I could refill the tube once or twice a week. I probably should add a pig pen somewhere so that I can have bacon with my eggs in the morning. <grin>