Coop Builders - What would you have changed or done differently?

[cthomson]

It gets very hot where I live so when constructing the "new, bigger chicken coop/hen house" I installed misters along the roof line. My coop is 10 x 8 feet x 8 feet tall. Enough walkin around room for me and they have high roosting poles stretching the length of the coop. They have a small house inside the pen which allows them some privacy to lay eggs but so far, they always sleep on the roost, preferring the height. It is wrapped almost completely in hardware cloth to keep out the critters. I have 'possums. It gets in the triple digits here in the summer, so I put the misters on a timer. It allows them to come on for 10 minutes at a time every hour to keep the girls cool. They love it. When they hear the water coming on, they run over and stand under them. When this first started, they would run away but soon learned the benefit of cool mist when it got really hot. Now, they are old pros. They can be out in the yard and will hear the misters power up and run to the hen house to stand in the mist. I would have also cemented the border area where the frame of my house sits. I have a mouse problem. They dig tunnels under the dirt and come up in the house. I have even run hardware cloth under the framework of the house 2 feet out from the coop and 2 feet inside the coop. They just dig further and come up in the middle of the house. This is an issue. Ongoing war with mice. On the subject of nesting boxes, my chickens free range during the day and I only have one who uses the nesting box. My biggest hen decided to use my dog's house. She looks at him in the morning and he vacates the premises. She goes in, lays an egg, and then he barks at me from the back door until I get it out of his house so he can re-enter. She does this every day. She refuses to lay in the hen house and will wait until you let her out. The other one will not lay unless she is in the hen house. I have had the door to the coop closed all day to keep out the birds and mice, and she will wait all day until the door opens and then lay her egg. They definitely have their preferences. My neighbor has a hen who lays her eggs on his work bench in his shop. Same place all the time.

 

[mairikra]

This is my coop right after it was built from recycled flooring. I have to keep my chickens inside as there are multiple predators in my area, which is heavily wooded. We have dogs, cats, snakes, big rats, foxes, coyotes, hawks, owls, raccoons, possums, etc. The foxes, hawks and snakes will get them in daytime, the other animals at night. Seems they are prey for everything!

The coop has a sheet metal roof to reflect heat. We have nest boxes on the outside so we can gather eggs easily. In the picture is their "chicken door," the other side has a "people door" of chicken wire available from outside. They have approximately 24" of space underneath the coop for shade. Temperatures get into the triple digits every summer for 60 - 90 days, so there is a vent window on each side of the coop in the gable walls. The roosts are elevated in ladder style slanted from above the nest boxes up for two long levels. We move the feeder outside in summer because we get hardly any rain in the summer. Our winters are mostly mild, and it rains a lot, but sometimes it gets down to a low of 7* and then we can shut all the windows and cover the chicken wire door with plastic. We do have plenty of space in the coop, as there is 64 sq. ft. inside.

We planned ahead on the coop with a lot of "chicken knowledge," so there's not much we would change if we could. However, we would make the space under the coop taller so we could reach it. Right now it's not tall enough for us to get under, even on our knees. We have to bend down from our knees to reach under, and try to use a rake to clean it, but that is mediocre at best. And the run is roofed with chicken wire, but is no longer big enough, as we are plagued with chicken math and the chickens cannot go outside!

We have 6 Buff Orpingtons, and they are pretty much happy, but I want to order some Marans and Speckled Sussex, so we have to enlarge the run in the near future.

 

[mairikra]

Those misters sound like a really good idea! My chickens would really appreciate them. They have fans in the summer, but sometimes they feel like they are just blowing super-heated oven air!

 

[TXchickmum]

-love the idea of the installed misters, as well. We have a large oak tree from whence hangs a mister at present. The coops are underneath the tree (and open) so the chickens can cool off. Since we added another coop and four more chicks, we will be building a new 8 x 12 coop in the spring to house everyone. -will definitely attempt to install a timed mister system! What a great idea!

 

[RoyalPayne]

Amen to designing a way out if trapped. The slamming of a jailhouse door could not have been any more frightening than the quiet 'snick' of the latch when it closed me in. No one home, and I didn't fit out the chicken door.

Thanks for the idea of the frost free hydrant, and the coil hose. I am not looking forward to carrying down 6 galons of water to the chicken yards.

I'd do water differently, if I could do over. And I'd make the coop taller. I put the clean out door opposite of the man door, but thought, the chickens are free range, no need to even enter the coop. Wrong. Do love my outside boxes, though. But it gets cold here, so I may insulate them this year.

I'd put a large window in also. I put one in the banti coop, and they love it. Especially in the winter when the snow is so deep they won't go outside. The larger hens would benefit from the solar heat as well as a look outside when the snows so deep. I'm thinking small snow blower this year. Last year I was capable of shoveling the 50' by 30' run, but not now so a snow blower would be nice.

And thanks also for the idea of the ladder style roosts. Been trying to figure out how to get more roosts into the coop I have. The ladder solves the problem.

One caveat? Do not, do not, do not run the chicken fencing off two corners of your coop to form the run. Cause when you fence in the adjoining garden to keep the free range chickens out of said garden you inadvertantly fence in your nest boxes also. So you have to enter the garden to gather eggs, and then exit the garden, walk around it, and then enter the run to get the banti eggs! Plan ahead. on paper, with pencil so you can erase everything, several times. And then, you'll still make mistakes.

Love this thread!!

 

[Dutch552]

Also consider what you are going to do in order to manage water runoff that comes off the roof. Gutters are cheap and will keep an otherwise wet and disease-prone area in and around the coop/run dry for you and the chickens.

 

[Urbanchicken62]

Biggest design flaw in coops seen online. Roof dumping rain water into the run.

 

[JHaller]

Wow, what an awesome thread!

Never again will I build a coop that requires me to STOOP on a daily basis to provide food and water. Daily tasks being done with fatigue, bad weather, illness, and being hurried are bad enough, so my next design will eliminate ALL needless struggling. Short Answer=all coops will be WALK-IN. This recommendation may not apply to families with children.

Never again will I build a coop with a space that allows any critter to be out of my reach. I have had to crawl through bedding to prod a possum out of corner in a 3-ft high 4x8 run...yuck! The same with a sick or dead chicken, or a bird that needs to captured for medication, relocation, etc.

 

[aggiemae]

Never again will I build a coop with a space that allows any critter to be out of my reach. I have had to crawl through bedding to prod a possum out of corner in a 3-ft high 4x8 run...yuck! The same with a sick or dead chicken, or a bird that needs to captured for medication, relocation, etc.

This actually occurred to me , almost too late, while I was building my (5X7) coop. There was a corner I couldn't reach from the clean out or hen doors. I solved this by making the next boxes removable and sure enough when our Marna got sick she was sitting in the exact spot I wouldn't have been able to reach without climbing in and all I had to do was unlatch the nest box.

I wish I had made space for storage. We have plenty of room in our garage but having a place for a couple of buckets for feed/calcium/scratch and more important cleaning supplies right at hand would be far more convenient. I am in the final phase of building the coop/run... adding an old kitchen cabinet, on legs so it doesn't reduce the floor space in the run. I'd intended to use it to isolate new /sick hens or accommodate a broody but will probably end up using it to store chicken stuff most of the time.

 

[wyandottes4Joe]

I use a used pickle barrel and have very little indoor or dry storage. The barrels work ok, but I still have a problem with moisture to some extent and I think the barrels would be better if they were kept out of the rain. Just a suggestion.