Hello!
I am brand new to this chicken thing... and I have so many questions!
I will be receiving 3 chicks (Americauna, Rhode Island Red, & Silver Laced Wyandotte) in about a week, and I am pondering coop ideas. I will have over a month before I will need to move them to a coop, but need to order or build one in the meantime. I live in Northern Minnesota and we spend a lot of the year in deep snow and cold (the month of january is often 10-20 below zero each day). I will not be heating my coop and would like the coop to be close to the house so I can care for the chickens in the winter without them being too far away. I am not interested in buying a shed/building a large area for them quite yet... and wanna make sure I enjoy it first.
So the vertical space would be not larger than 4 or 5 feet. I would like to build or purchase for less than $400.
This is my back yard view facing my house. Free ranging my chickens is not an option as I dont have a fence and there are too many neighbors/dogs/creatures around. Here are my thoughts:
Option #1: Build a chicken coop/run that will sit against the back side of my 3 season porch. I like this idea because they would be easily visible and could get the most space. I worry about smell and the fact that the bottom is landscape river rock... (maybe thats not a concern?). The river rock border is 2-3 feet, and the length is about 15 feet across the whole back. It would also be fairly difficult to move, but maybe not with two people or if I made it into detachable sections. Definitely would be the easiest option to build as it would just be a long rectangle.
Option #2: I build/buy a mobile chicken coop (A version of the Garden Ark maybe?) that I could move around my yard in the summer and set right inside/on top of my garden beds in the winter. Each bed is roughly 6x3. I love this idea because the chickens could til up my garden in fall/winter/spring and cleanup of the run would be minimal, plus I could move the coop around The downside to this is the confined space for the chickens. 18 square feet of run space plus 6-9 square feet of coop space just doesnt seem like enough for chickens that wont have free range of a yard. I could build an adjacent run to another bed to add space, but honestly I dont know if I'm up for that amount of handyman work.
What do you think? If this was your backyard what would you do?? Thank you for any suggestions!
I am brand new to this chicken thing... and I have so many questions!
I will be receiving 3 chicks (Americauna, Rhode Island Red, & Silver Laced Wyandotte) in about a week, and I am pondering coop ideas. I will have over a month before I will need to move them to a coop, but need to order or build one in the meantime. I live in Northern Minnesota and we spend a lot of the year in deep snow and cold (the month of january is often 10-20 below zero each day). I will not be heating my coop and would like the coop to be close to the house so I can care for the chickens in the winter without them being too far away. I am not interested in buying a shed/building a large area for them quite yet... and wanna make sure I enjoy it first.
So the vertical space would be not larger than 4 or 5 feet. I would like to build or purchase for less than $400.This is my back yard view facing my house. Free ranging my chickens is not an option as I dont have a fence and there are too many neighbors/dogs/creatures around. Here are my thoughts:
Option #1: Build a chicken coop/run that will sit against the back side of my 3 season porch. I like this idea because they would be easily visible and could get the most space. I worry about smell and the fact that the bottom is landscape river rock... (maybe thats not a concern?). The river rock border is 2-3 feet, and the length is about 15 feet across the whole back. It would also be fairly difficult to move, but maybe not with two people or if I made it into detachable sections. Definitely would be the easiest option to build as it would just be a long rectangle.
Option #2: I build/buy a mobile chicken coop (A version of the Garden Ark maybe?) that I could move around my yard in the summer and set right inside/on top of my garden beds in the winter. Each bed is roughly 6x3. I love this idea because the chickens could til up my garden in fall/winter/spring and cleanup of the run would be minimal, plus I could move the coop around The downside to this is the confined space for the chickens. 18 square feet of run space plus 6-9 square feet of coop space just doesnt seem like enough for chickens that wont have free range of a yard. I could build an adjacent run to another bed to add space, but honestly I dont know if I'm up for that amount of handyman work.
What do you think? If this was your backyard what would you do?? Thank you for any suggestions!
