Calling all roost & poop board designers! ;)

[3KillerBs]

I keeping thinking..... 5 pound bag, 10 pounds of stuff.

Same.

How about investing some of the money and effort you're putting into the big run into adding on to the coop? For 11 chickens you want 44 square feet inside with 11 feet of roost and 11 square feet of permanent, 24/7/365 ventilation, which is best located above their heads when they're on the roost.

6x8 -- essentially doubling the width -- would give 48 square feet.

Alternately, you don't have to keep all the chickens that the hatchery sent. I intentionally ordered more than I wanted to keep and will sell the extras as POL pullets once I decide which ones I like best.

 

[sillygolucky]

Putting the poop board right above the nests would work without a ramp.
Wouldn't be easy to clean tho(myachinback!).
The roost layout you propose would not be easy to clean either,
unless you hinge the roost assembly....
.....and it's still only 7' of roosting area when you need 11' for 11 birds.

If you want to go higher with board, you could hinge a ramp at end wall and have it come down in front of board.

I keeping thinking..... 5 pound bag, 10 pounds of stuff.

"I keeping thinking..... 5 pound bag, 10 pounds of stuff." Indeed...

Well I have to admit after reading all the suggestions so far, I felt pretty stressed and overwhelmed. lol. As a first-time chicken mama and someone who is trying her darndest to 1) create a healthy environment for the chooks and 2) make it as easy as possible for us to keep it that way, I'm frustrated that the coop we bought (that wasn't cheap!) is lacking on so many basics as far as usability inside. I wish we'd done more research ahead of time; but it is what it is, and we will work with what we have.

So we've nixed the perpendicular roost idea. Just more complicated than we prefer; and yep, we'd have to have them hinged which is no big deal, but still yet another thing to take apart to clean, etc... Simple and efficient is what we are after. I think it would be 12' of roosting area if they also used the ends, but still, simplicity is what we really want! (My drawing is looking down from the top, if that got confusing! The 14" is the room between the roosts.)

Thanks for your input!! And btw, yesterday morning I read through your coop page. What a fantastic transformation and evolution. Do you still have the same layout, etc...?

 

[3KillerBs]

Great idea to reduce our chook count if needed. That may possibly happen if more than one of the freebies we got turn out to be roos. lol. And I'm sure some of our neighbors who have chickens would take an extra layer or two if needed!!

I was able to get $15 each for POL pullets last year in my area. Prices vary, but you can check Craigslist for your local going rates.

"Packing peanut" extras tend to be male. Ideal says it in their ordering information as "extra males for warmth".

I'm hoping our ventilation is more than adequate. I hadn't heard of the sqft specs for that before--so is it whatever the minimum roosting requirement would be? (E.g. 11" of roosting, therefore 11sqft of ventilation?) We have two 24/7 open copulas and a permanently open vent under the gable in the back. We also plan on adding another vent on the opposite end of the coop, too.

You figure the coop capacity based on the interior square footage not counting the nest boxes -- 4 square feet per adult, standard-size hen (the numbers the manufacturers claim are based on the standards for commercial-raised chickens). Then the other numbers apply based on the number of chickens.

Ventilation is a tricky one because it's not just the amount but the location that matters and because just how much you need can vary in different climates and settings. BUT, you need ventilation just as much in the winter as in the summer. The goal is to have the temperature and humidity the same inside as out.

My Little Monitor Coop has just shy of 5 square feet of ventilation not counting the pop door in a coop intended for 4 hens. My Outdoor Brooder, which is 4x8", has 16 square feet of permanent ventilation plus 10 more square feet of supplemental ventilation. But in my climate it's necessary to add shade to keep the temperatures from climbing.

While our coop is going to last a long time and has a lot of great qualities, it just seems like one hurdle after another when attempting to optimize the inside!

These "Amish" style coops are, unlike many prefabs (particularly the coop-and-run combos), often well-made but the good carpenters who build them aren't usually knowledgeable about what chickens actually need.

 

[sillygolucky]

It's a decent drawing, I got it, but I'm a drafter by trade.

14" might will be well within pecking reach once they are full grown.
Beak to Butts it will be.

I actually did read (on your coop page I think?) that you were a drafter by trade. Very nice!! Must be handy for sure.

And I am LOLing at "beak to butts"...true enough...probably not the ideal setup unless you have a ton of room to give them between bars. But then, I would think the standard single bar would be the best choice in any set up.

 

[sillygolucky]

With a slanted, stepped setup like I see in your photos, it looks like you're creating work for your birds to get to the roosts and eliminates easy access to that side of the coop, not to mention cleaning under the roost bars will be less than fun.

So the roosts you see in our coop is how the builder made them, and what we are wanting to get rid of and rebuild, hence my reason for this post We've just disassembled them and now this is what we have to work with! (pix below)

When my bf built our coop, he created a door at one long end of the coop for entry/exit that is about 14" off the floor. It's about 14" or so down to the floor of the coop and about 12-14" up to the first roost bar. In the photos you showed above, imagine the roost bars running from side instead of lengthwise in the coop.

Our first roost bar is just inside of the door by about 14" but about 14" higher than the door threshold (it's a step up in effect), so to roost they have to jump up to go to the higher roost bars. Those remaining roost bars run laterally (like the first) but another 14" higher and each successive roost bar is the same total height of about 42" off the floor. The chickens just jump from bar to bar as they wish. In the morning, they file across the bars one by one, jump down to the low bar, then to the door threshold and come out.

When they need to reach the nest boxes, they jump down to the floor from the doorway and walk to whichever nest box they need to reach. When finished, they walk across the floor, then jump up to the door opening and exit.

Try thinking about a split level house for what I've described and you'll get the picture of our entry door versus the floor and the door versus the roost bars. ADVANTAGE: we don't have issues with them being able to reach either the nest boxes or the roosts and we're using most all the horizontal space at the floor level and at the roost bar level.
BEST OF ALL HOWEVER:
We put a pullout floor (drawer) in the same end as the door and just below it that allows us to pull the entire "floor" from the coop and clean it super easily any time we wish.

I would absolutely love to see a photo of this! Sounds like a super efficient use of space and great for your chooks We considered doing horizontal stair-step bars across the whole width of the coop, but wanting the droppings boards made that not possible with the space we have. If I wasn't dead-set on the boards, I think that setup could work excellently in our coop with a few minor tweaks. I assume your coop is not a walk-in type then? I peeked at your profile and found one partial pix of a light green coop and wasn't sure if it was a walk-in or not.

That's awesome you have the removable litter drawer. We could have had pull-outs in ours as well, but we didn't like the way it felt when walking on it inside since ours is a walk-in coop. Not to mention they were mega heavy, and at one point we were considering using sand as litter. If I had a waist-high coop, I'd definitely prefer pull out trays, though!

 

[Swbertrand1]

So the roosts you see in our coop is how the builder made them, and what we are wanting to get rid of and rebuild, hence my reason for this post We've just disassembled them and now this is what we have to work with! (pix below)



I would absolutely love to see a photo of this! Sounds like a super efficient use of space and great for your chooks We considered doing horizontal stair-step bars across the whole width of the coop, but wanting the droppings boards made that not possible with the space we have. If I wasn't dead-set on the boards, I think that setup could work excellently in our coop with a few minor tweaks. I assume your coop is not a walk-in type then? I peeked at your profile and found one partial pix of a light green coop and wasn't sure if it was a walk-in or not.

That's awesome you have the removable litter drawer. We could have had pull-outs in ours as well, but we didn't like the way it felt when walking on it inside since ours is a walk-in coop. Not to mention they were mega heavy, and at one point we were considering using sand as litter. If I had a waist-high coop, I'd definitely prefer pull out trays, though!

Ours is not a walk-in type. It was custom built from hand-drawn plans by my bf who has spent a lifetime remodeling and building. It's a sweet coop designed for about 10 birds.

In your photos, I see the chickens' entrance at the opposite end from the walk-in door.

MY BF IS TAKING OVER THE POST FROM HERE:
If it were me using the shell you have now, I'd run ledger boards down both sides of the coop just under the windows mounted to the vertical studs, notch the ledgers the size of a cross-section of 2x4 laid flat every 20" or so to create a cradle for 2x4 roost bars that run side to side in the coop with as many as you can get in there running them 20" apart. That makes ALL the roost bars removable for easy cleaning.

For the last "roost bar", the step-up bar where the chickens enter/exit, mount another removable roost bar half the distance between the floor and the height of the rest of the roost bars (can't really tell how a lower ledger board would work with the framing from the photos, but anything is possible). I've reworked our coop at least four times to create separations a 2nd bird entrance to make dual runs possible (good for young birds that need some protection from the adults), still gives us access via an access door that we can climb in, and allows for storage in the back). The coop is only 5' x 8', but ALL space is utilized.

With a little creativity, you can re-frame the walk-in door opening to incorporate a pull-out tray to remove all waste in one swoop without having to even remove the roost bars. Clean the "tray", add new pine shavings, insert back into the bottom of the coop.

A post above mentioned dirty feet in the nest boxes, and ours are much like yours and off to the side of roost area, but in 4 years we have never had a problem with dirty feet in the nest boxes, but that might be because my bf cleans the coop tray out every Thursday like clockwork. We have 11 hens and one rooster, and it works for us.

 

[DobieLover]

Ah yes, I see your logic now. Totally in a place where no one should need to land Thanks for your ramp "recipe"...I was curious if there was a standard people generally used.

Another thing I was going to ask everyone, and since you mentioned keeping the roosts at the height of the bottom of the windows--is having the roost in front of a window at all a bad thing? Those windows on the left are not completely sealed, and on particularly windy days would probably have a teensy bit of air flow through them.

Seems to me in the winter especially that could be a bad thing with cold air right on them, but for ventilation in general would be a good thing? I was wondering if we should probably seal those up for the winter, at least maybe the bottom halves?

As you can see in the picture of my coop I have windows all around the roosts. They also leak a little but not enough to even come close to opening feathers. It's just more ventilation.

 

[aart]

Seems to me in the winter especially that could be a bad thing with cold air right on them, but for ventilation in general would be a good thing? I was wondering if we should probably seal those up for the winter, at least maybe the bottom halves?

I tacked up some cardboard over the bottoms of the windows to block most the draft.
You can see part of it on the right.

 

[sillygolucky]

Same.

How about investing some of the money and effort you're putting into the big run into adding on to the coop? For 11 chickens you want 44 square feet inside with 11 feet of roost and 11 square feet of permanent, 24/7/365 ventilation, which is best located above their heads when they're on the roost.

6x8 -- essentially doubling the width -- would give 48 square feet.

Alternately, you don't have to keep all the chickens that the hatchery sent. I intentionally ordered more than I wanted to keep and will sell the extras as POL pullets once I decide which ones I like best.

Believe me, changing the current coop we have to be larger would be amazing. But construction is NOT our forte, which is why we bought this one pre-made. We have a lot of skills--that is just not one of them! Plus, the chicks will be ready in about a week to go out, so we're kind of short on time. They are already spending 6+ hours a day in the run and here in Indiana our nighttime temps haven't been getting below 60.

Great idea to reduce our chook count if needed. That may possibly happen if more than one of the freebies we got turn out to be roos. lol. And I'm sure some of our neighbors who have chickens would take an extra layer or two if needed!!

I'm hoping our ventilation is more than adequate. I hadn't heard of the sqft specs for that before--so is it whatever the minimum roosting requirement would be? (E.g. 11" of roosting, therefore 11sqft of ventilation?) We have two 24/7 open copulas and a permanently open vent under the gable in the back. We also plan on adding another vent on the opposite end of the coop, too.

 

[sillygolucky]

If it were me I would want to avoid messy chicken feet in the nests and would want to preserve an easy way to enter and clean the coop. The people I see give up owning chickens are the ones who couldn't keep up with the chores associated with a bad setup. I would just put a roost on either side of the door running to the opposite wall and then one going across the back wall. That way you can walk in and scrape your poop boards whenever it's needed instead of putting it off because the system is a pain to unhinge. The square footage rules are more like guidelines anyway; some chickens need more space and some need less. I have 5 hens and a rooster that all cram onto 3 feet of roost even though they have AMPLE room. I've also had birds that were loners and wanted a whole roost to themselves. Build it to suit your needs and then tweak it as needed (or rehome birds who don't play well within your system). View attachment 2756022

Totally with you--we want to ensure clean feet for the nesting boxes! That is why I just can't give up the addition of the poop boards. I know it will eliminate a lot of the poop on the floor (at least on days where they are pretty much only sleeping in there), which will help keep their tootsies clean!

Unfortunately we won't be able to add roosts/poop boards in the full U-shape because we only have 3.5 feet of width there! If it were only roosts, that might work; but with added poop boards that most say need to be 24" wide with a roost centered over it, the most we could do would be an L-shape (I'd do the left side and then back).

In our latest brainstorm (pix below), we are considering the L-shape with a poop board of 18-20" wide (may make it all one level; I made the back higher in this drawing). I know that width is pushing it. lol. But we really want to open the space up as much as possible for fly-downs while keeping it cleaner with the boards. We can always rebuild them if needed. A few people have suggested ramps (easily movable) which we will definitely do as well--maybe two, as shown in blue. I'd try to keep them as far back as possible as not to take up needed floor space. The black areas on the bottom right are nesting boxes that will never be used, as this coop has 8! I figured 2-3 is all we'd need but we may leave the front 4 open once they start laying. We'll use the extra ones for storage most likely.

I think you are spot on--we will do our best to change it to suit our needs, working with what we have; and if needed we can rehome chooks who are uncomfortable with the setup!