I'm thinking you might need to redo the nesting box. It sucks, I know, but in the long run, over time, if it is done well, it shouldn't ever leak. We had agonized for a long time over how we should do ours. We brainstormed quite a bit actually. Finally we came up with a box where the roof went up inside of the wall so when rain ran down the wall, the only place it had to go was down the roof of the box. Of course, this leaves a small gap because of the angle of the roof. We filled that with caulk and covered it with a trim board. Again, the roof needs an angle for the water to run down, but it doesn't need to be that steep. It will not be holding any kind of snow load for long, since it is easy to reach and easy to brush off. The surface area is small, so it will hold a lot of weight anyway. Check out my coop page and see how mine was done. The roof doesn't necessarily have to open to collect eggs, and you don't have to get as fancy as mine. I hope this helps. If you need any more details, you can always send me a PM. I'll be glad to help in any way I can.So I finally (mostly) finished the coop, it took a little longer than I'd hoped, but it's pretty close now. Here're a couple pictures, followed by a new set of questions! :-D (Of course!)
1. Is there any benefit to having a roosting bar of sorts in the "run" area? If they're let out into the run during the day, will they use the roost, or is that pointless? (I had extra wood from the roof that I figured I'd set there, you can see it in the first picture.)
2. As you can see, it's not really dig-proof currently.I've seen the suggestions to dig 1' down and bury hardware cloth, or "L" cloth down and cover it with sand. Given the size of the base frame of the structure (treated 2x2s), there's not really going to be room for me to put a few inches of sand down in the current setup (without a bunch of sand spilling out.) Has anyone tried placing 12" square pavers down as a digging deterrent? I figure I'd place the structure in the middle of each paver, so about 5" extending both inside and outside from the coop, then covering over with sand -- this allows the benefit of raising the structure so I have some more room for sand/gravel, and also a few inches to deter predators from digging. Well, that's the theory *in my head* -- are racoons/other predators smarter than the paver, and will they manage to dig in anyway?
3. The roof on the nesting box is currently just bare boards, I'd like to cover it with something. I've got a section of sheet roofing that I cut from the run/coop roof that I can/had planned to use. However, I'm running into a couple issues -- the nesting box top opens, meaning I can't use the roofing flush with the top edge of the box -- the roofing material would hit the board above the lid and prevent full lifting. Secondly, even without the roof section, there's a bit of opening where the hinges sit -- it's not flush with the 2x4 the hinges are mounted to, but I don't think I can stick a shim in there or anything, otherwise it wouldn't open (I don't think?). Any ideas how to close the gap, and/or what I did wrong and how to redesign it?
4. I'm slightly concerned about some of the gaps, albeit small gaps, between some of the 1x6 boards -- Even in the winter when I board up the windows on the doors to the coop, there're gaps there, too. Should I try my best to seal those up, or should it be OK? The floorboards of the coop will have vinyl on top, so I'm mostly just concerned about the walls. (Once again, I'm in Seattle, where the typical winter is fairly mild, we might drop into the teens/twenties for a week, but generally around/above freezing..)
Thanks for all the input everyone, I really appreciate it!
Wood will naturally swell and warp as it ages. Even treated wood. What type of waterseal did you use? Check the can to see if it is an exterior sealer. How many coats did you apply?
