Catawba Coop - Comments? Suggestions?

[patman75]

Quote:
I can lift one side up at a time a shimmy it through the yard a little at a time. I'm skinny with no muscle tone at all.

If you have to move it long distances i just take the sides off and it is much lighter.

I only area where I think you could lighten the load is the side panels and side doors. If you made them out of one piece of some sort of composite wood and then add some serious hardware, at least 3 or 4 on the side to keep critters from popping off the sides.

I have three eye hooks 2 top and 1 bottom securing the side + the weight of the sides hold it down tight.

 

[renegaderidgefarm]

Take a look at my hen house/Laying house at my web page let me know what you think. I love mine and have had great response to it. Thanks, Randy

 

[kristenm1975]

Hello! I just had to respond because I've built 12 of the Catawba coops so from that standpoint, I'm very familiar with them. I have not yet had the chance to own and use one of them yet, however I will begin building my very own cedar Catawba in a few weeks (yay!!).

Regarding the roost bar, what I did was just move it over an inch or so in order to avoid having it hang over the ramp. That was no biggie.

About cleaning them, the folks who've gotten the coops from me are using a variety of different methods but all of them involve covering the floor area with something, whether it be newspaper topped with woodshavings, or just plain woodshavings, straw, etc. I even heard of a lady using kitty litter. The point being, it seems to make them last longer and be easier to keep tidy of there's some sort of covering. I'm considering putting down linoleum over the whole deck area, just so it can come clean faster.

I used 1/2 inch hardware cloth on all of the Catawba's I built and that seemed to be the ideal choice. Something else I tried on the last couple was to secure the hardware cloth to the 2x2 frame using 1 1/4" screws and one inch washers. It makes it MUCH easier to secure, and much harder for any creature to tear loose. I wouldn't personally put chicken wire on the bottom because it's such a huge part of a chicken's daily life to scratch and they can't really do that with the wire there. If you are concerned about the lawn, maybe find someplace where you won't be so worried about them digging it up, or find a way to move the coop often enough that they don't have time to ruin the lawn.

I made a couple of modifications to the long side doors that I think made them easier to build and to use without sacrificing the safety of the coop. First, rather than cutting 3/4 of an inch off the bottom of a 1x6x8, for use as a ledge to rest the door against the frame, I just used the trimmed pieces from the long handles as the ledges. I positioned them 30" from the ends, and a 1/2" up from the bottom and it works like magic. MUCH easier than cutting such a narrow strip off such a long board.

Hope this helps!

 

[flightrisk]

I had thought of another solution to the side door, but haven't really worked it through yet. I thought if there was clearance enough to lift it an inch before lifting it up and out then I could use some sort of "U" bracket. They sell angle iron that is in a complete u shape, or I could find or bend some brackes in a vice. Imagine just a mall piece of metal you could bend into a U or an h (small h for its shape) and screw that to the bottom of the panel. The U would hook over the top of the board that it now rests on. Another option is just a metal plate attached to the same wood thingies you used. The metal overhangs your wood to create a lip that locks it in place:

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This shows the h or U bracket attached to the side panel and it slips into the top edge of the bottom wood board.

Fred

 

[flightrisk]

Hi Randy,

Saw your page, very nice!

Fred

 

[drewva]

I recently purchased a ready-made chicken coop very similar to the Catawba Coop from Amazon.
It saved me the whole drama of materials and construction.
I'm very happy with it, as are my hens.
see:
http://www.amazon.com/Chicken-Coop-...?ie=UTF8&s=home-garden&qid=1252027031&sr=8-15

 

[sephiroth]

I like our Catawba. I put tin roofing on mine so it's not convertible. Still I like it. I can reach in far enough to clean it from either end.

I used the square wire but would probably go with smaller hardware cloth if I were to do it again.

I think it's a great design!

 

[kristenm1975]

That's an awesome idea, flightrisk, using U hooks to hold the doors on!! I'm definitely going to try that when I build mine.

Sounds like a cheap and easy solution.

 

[chick4chix]

I have a catawba style coop and love it. I, like you have toyed with what I would do differently to make the poo-clean up easier. I haven't come up with an easy way to address that yet since as you point out- it would block the hatch ladder. I did paint the interior of mine with two coats of weatherproofing to make it easier to clean and have lined the roost area with newspaper and pine shavings. I recently stopped using the paper because the chickens would shred it all up anyway- so now when I clean it out- I dust the bottom of the whole roost area with DE then put the pine shavings on it. I then just use a whisk broom and dustpan and dump it right into the compost pile- its not too bad and doesn't take long, but you are right -the ladder gets gross.
I look forward to seeing what you come up with- share your photos when you've got it made.

Here is mine- the only thing we did differently to the original plan was make more headroom in both the bottom and the top so it's a little taller- but still easy to move when the sides & ends are off.

 

[cook_kaka_ook]

It usually takes a couple of person to move these type of tractors. However, you can add a set of wheels in one end to make the task easier. If you would like an instant wheel use a hand truck but you will need an extra hand to keep it in place while you're pushing it. Good luck!