Coop 99% Complete

[OrganicHouse]

Have some small details here and there we need to tighten up. But YES!!!! Our very 1st coop. Chicks stayed in their new home for the 1st time last night. Very happy to have them out of the house. That was a long and smelly 2 weeks..

[/IMG]

Just need to get the boxes in and we're good to go..

edited by staff

 

[JanetS]

Nice. Be careful using chicken wire. It's not strong enough to keep out many predators. How many chicks do you have?

 

[miquwid]

very nice, what would you use instead of chicken wire?

 

[Crabella]

Congrats on building your first coop. enjoy your chicks...
Looks like you used OSB for your coop. You will want to paint it, inside and out. OSB is not weather/water resistant and will fall apart after a few winters. I cannot tell what you have for ventilation, but you will need to make sure you provide plenty as poor ventilation will cause health problems for your flock. If you used chicken wire on your run, you will probably want to replace it with hardware cloth as soon as funds and time allow. As previous poster stated chicken wire will not keep out predators.

Keep us posted...

 

[OrganicHouse]

We have 6 chicks. And that is very good to know about the chicken wire, I will look into the hardware cloth soon. So far I have only seen 1 or 2 opossums in the year I've been here, but figure they will come out of the wood works for food.
I didn't get a good pic of the roof, but there is good ventilation and the sides can be either cracked open or will open completely.
Does anyone have any recommendations on which paint I should use? I was going to do a water seal and my daughter wanted some color, but didnt know if certain types may be harmful to the birds.

 

[miquwid]

I looked into hardware wire and it is wonderful I feel so secure now with it on. I just put it over the existing chickens wire. I was thinking that no VOC paint would be the way to go I was thinking the same thing that the coop could use some paint. I would use an exterior paint.

 

[cknkids]

Congratulations, looks great

We used exterior paint from Home Depot. If you check they often have oops paint marked way down. We found a pale blue and sweet talked them in to tinting it purple as my kids also wanted color. We found Amazon was best for ordering 1/2" hardware cloth, about half the cost as Home Depot.

Also, I'm wondering how big your coop and run is? Many on this site aim for 4 sq ft inside and 10 sq ft out side. Of course many factor go into determining whats right for each of us.