Well my girls have been in their new coop for a little over a year now. While I mostly love it, I have discovered that I made a design flaw. In my enthusiasm to use all 4 of the vintage windows I had saved from an old cabin that was demolished, I designed the front of the coop with two windows placed vertically right above the external nest boxes.
So this meant that the slope of the nest box roof is very slight and yes you guessed it. This has become a chicken hang out and there is of course, poop all over. Also it gets down in the space between the coop and the roof so every time I lift the lid to get eggs, a shower of dry poo falls into the nest box. This is all my fault. So modifications need to be made ASAP. I would like to plan out what to do so I can present it to my husband.
I plan to cut out the front panel of the nest boxes inside the trim. I would then like to build some small doors and attach them so they could just open out like cupboard doors. In fact, I might even have some old cupboard doors that could just be cut down for this. Then I will remove the handles on the lids and cover that with either metal roofing or that corregated fiberglass stuff so that they slide off when they jump up there.
Does this sound feasible? Why oh why didn't I think of this when it was in the design stages? I could just smack myself. If you have any better ideas, please let me know.
I would be cutting out the white part on each nest box, There is now trim on either side of the pop door so I could attach new doors right to the trim on each side. As you can see, I should have put one window horizontally up high instead of the two vertically and made much steeper nest box roofs.
So this meant that the slope of the nest box roof is very slight and yes you guessed it. This has become a chicken hang out and there is of course, poop all over. Also it gets down in the space between the coop and the roof so every time I lift the lid to get eggs, a shower of dry poo falls into the nest box. This is all my fault. So modifications need to be made ASAP. I would like to plan out what to do so I can present it to my husband.
I plan to cut out the front panel of the nest boxes inside the trim. I would then like to build some small doors and attach them so they could just open out like cupboard doors. In fact, I might even have some old cupboard doors that could just be cut down for this. Then I will remove the handles on the lids and cover that with either metal roofing or that corregated fiberglass stuff so that they slide off when they jump up there.
Does this sound feasible? Why oh why didn't I think of this when it was in the design stages? I could just smack myself. If you have any better ideas, please let me know.
I would be cutting out the white part on each nest box, There is now trim on either side of the pop door so I could attach new doors right to the trim on each side. As you can see, I should have put one window horizontally up high instead of the two vertically and made much steeper nest box roofs.
