coop floor

[Flufnstuffs~FluffySilkies]

Hi,
DO the wooden Floor.
I painted my floor with out door house paint.
Then I went to Walmart and bought SUPER THICK CLEAR PLASTIC from the fabric section it is on a huge roll you buy it by the yard. It is the thickest stuff you can find/buy anywhere. I put it on the floor and stapel it up the sides of the wall about 8 inches. The floors of all my pens/coops are like brand new after years of use.

 

[JFL1950]

There should be very easy to add a floor to it 1/2 a sheet of plywood would do they sell some 3/8' at lowes or home depot for around $6.00 and you can have them cut it in half so you will have two just incase you need to double up on it .
If you set it on cynder blocks it should last a while. I thiunk you should be able to raise 4 or so ok in it they like sleeping together.
Once the males get of age tey can get rather nasty with them.
We use the dirt floor and put straw on it they dig in it and it seems to work.
Now that they are 20 weeks old they are jumping the 4' wire fence and free ranging on there own. No ploblem for the ones that make it back in the coop at night but last week two were left out and the next day we found feathers so a coyote got them as well as 12 of our ducks a week ago so don't think nothing is out there to do them in.
I just have to catch one some night and put an end to him and his friends I just hope my fater-in-law has put up his dog so I don't make a mistake.
As far as the moles go we have a cat that is de-clawed she takes care of them them then I feed them to the chickens.

 

[Zylphrix]

hmmm .. think im going to walmart for my floor covering

 

[lauralou]

I'm back, City Girl. Sorry I called you Country Girl in the last message, but hey, you are a country girl now.

Anyway, I'd love to help you get your coop together. If only I could visualize how the thing is made. I went to the Lowe's website to check it out again. It has "solid panel construction" they say. Hmmm... I have no idea what that means, and it has me a little confused. Is the playhouse made of panels attached to a framework of 2X4's? Or is it something else entirely? I'd go to Lowe's myself, but it's an hour away from me. Home Depot, too. Sigh.

Help me get my mind around it and I'll help you build it. Short on carpentry skills? Don't worry, it won't be that bad.

 

[CityGirlintheCountry]

Alright, Lauralou, I picked the playhouse up today. AND it was $50 cheaper than when I bought it so I got a $50 rebate. Whoohoo for me!
I haven't pulled it out of the box yet, but I studied the sample they had set up. It looks like it is four premade panels framed out with 2x2s and covered with exterior grade plywood siding. The roof seems to be individual shakes strips that I will hammer on one at a time.
I bought 4 cinder blocks and a sheet of 1/2" plywood. I had the man cut it in half and plan to lay them on top of each other with grains running perpendicular to each other. I'll cover that with linoleum/vinyl.

Do think that will be okay? Should I paint the underside of the floor (the side facing the ground)? I figured to face the whole thing with lattice to make it look a little better.

I'm sooooo excited! If only it would warm up and quit raining!
CG

 

[pattycake]

Quote:
The plywood is absorbing water, is the problem. I'm afraid it will rot out. I might paint it instead -- that would probably help, and the whole inside of the coop is so poop and blood spattered (dont' ask!) that I really ought to paint the whole thing.

I WISH I had done a droppings board! I'm not handy, though, and I'd already asked my husband to do enough work on my coop. Every morning I go in and scoop up the poop under the roost. I'm doing a modified deep litter method: I clean out the poop and throw more straw on top. But I prefer to keep the straw cleanish and stir it up once in a while. Now it's getting a bit damp and possibly mite-invested, so I'm going to change out the whole thing. Yep, in middle of winter.

Personally, I'd HAVE to have some way of getting most of the poop out each day, even with the deep litter method, unless I had a gigantic coop. There is just a tremendous amount of it .

Maybe this spring I'll add a droppings board somehow...

 

[Jayare's Chicks]

I'm just about done with building my coop and 2 days ago I noticed a roll of some sort of lanolium type stuff in with the scraps of lumber out by the shed. We just bought this house and 8 acres 3 weeks ago today and I never saw it there when we were considering the house.

Tomorrow if it's not raining I am planning to cut a piece of it the size of the floor in the coop and put that in there to make clean up easier. I will also layer some straw in there on top of it to make cleaning easier also.

I plan to post some of the pics of my coop pretty soon. I have dial-up here in the country so it would take too long to post the pics right now so at some point I will take my laptop somewhere where I can use someone elses wireless connection to make it quicker.

Jayare

 

[lauralou]

City Girl,

Doubled plywood for a floor sitting on cinder blocks at the corners, if I understand you correctly. Do you ever plan to step into the house to clean it or whatever? If so, I would put a framework under that floor, build it just like a real house. I'll explain this in a minute. But first, do you have a handle on setting those cinder blocks? They must be level and stable. They are your foundation. If they rock, the coop will rock. Need detailed directions? Just ask.

Here's what I would do for the floor. I would go to Lowe's and buy 3 treated 8 foot 2X6's. I'd have the guys there cut them to length for me. That probably won't be exactly 4' on all of them. Probably 4' on two of them and 3'-9" on four. We'll measure for this later. First let me tell you what you're doing, so it will make sense. (I hope) I'm going to pretend that you will use screws and a screw gun to put this together. You could nail it, too. I couldn't, because I can't hammer a nail. I'm very spoiled with a big old nail gun, which most folks don't have. Anyway....

Take one of the longer boards, set it on your cinder block foundation, on the outside edges of the blocks. Set it on end, so it is 6" tall. Put a shorter board up against it at the corner, on the inside. Screw them together. Use at least two screws, 3" long. We are making a box here, so the shorter board plus the width of the two longer boards will equal your 4' measure. Go to the other end of your second board and use the other longer board at the other corner, on the outside of the board. Okay, now you've used both of your longer boards, opposite of each other, so you can't go wrong from here. Attach another board at the remaining corners. You should have a square. These are your rim joists. They support the outer walls of the coop. You will want this to be pretty square. If you don't have a carpenter's square, you can use something that you know is square like a nonflexible box to check the square of the thing as you are building it. Just stick it in the corners and see if it fits tightly. If not, move the boards until it does. This doesn't have to be perfect, but it shouldn't be too far off.

Now for the floor joists, which will support you should you step into the coop. Take the other two boards, on end, and screw them in at about 16" and 32" inside your box. Now you have a very sturdy floor framed up.

Take a piece of plywood and screw it onto this framing, one screw every 8 inches or so along the outside edges and along the floor joists. These will be shorter screws. You can use the other piece of plywood on top if you don't need it for anything else. You don't have to worry about hitting your joists on this one. Just screw it in around the edges and wherever else in the middle.

Then construct your coop on top of this platform. I think of building in terms of 2X4's, and I would screw the bottom 2X4 of the wall panel directly into the plywood floor. But with 2X2's, I worry that they might split. So I would buy a drill bit slightly smaller than my screws and drill pilot holes all the way through the 2X2 first. Drill 4 or 5 holes down the length of the 2X2, then screw it into the floor. Then go to the next panel, attach it to the floor the same way, then attach the wall panels together at the corner, and so on.

Now for the correct measurements on the 2X6's. You want these to be the exact measurements of the bottom 2X2's in your wall panels. These might all be the same length, but I doubt it. Normally, two sides will be slightly shorter, to give you finished dimensions that are equal. So measure them, and add 2 more of the shorter length for your floor joists.

I hope that made sense If I were near you, I would come over with a truckload of tools and pop that baby out in 15 minutes. My nail gun would sound like an M-16. Pop pop pop pop! Pop! Oh, I've had a lot of coffee this morning!

But seriously, if you think you want to give it a try, I'm sure you can handle it. If you have any questions, ask me. Of course, you may think that I'm going a little overboard, and you could be right. It wouldn't be the first time!

 

[CityGirlintheCountry]

Ooooooo... a nail gun... I have always wanted a nail gun! I did break down and buy a chop saw when I bought this old house. It comes in handy. I would love a nail gun though, or one of those pneumatic staplers that shoots the long staples. Or a Yard Boy with carpentry skills. Either way.

I was wondering if the floor should be framed up. I will likely need to go inside periodically. It's not so big that I can't scoop it out from outside, but I'm sure there will be something.

It's terribly frustrating to not be able to go out and slap that baby together right now. One of these days it will quit raining and dry out! Thank heavens it's not snow!!

Thanks for the help!
CG

 

[MamacatPatch]

What is a 'deep liter method' exactly??

We built our free ranging roosters a shed/coop for the winter with their food inside and some roosts but they never use it! They roosted on our porch till we finally got them off that. Now they are in our big maple tree at night. I mean rain, storm, lightening, snow, ice, wind, cold ... they're in that tree instead of the shed/coop.

Yesterday I found out some animal has been using the shed/coop as a liter box! So I cleaned it out, soaked wood shavings and all, but can't decide if I should leave it bare or put hay in or something. They have a little "chicken door" entrance/exit so our cats and other roaming critters can easily get into the shed/coop, unfortunately! I would like to put something down at least under the roost area just in case they do actually decide to use it, so the wood doesn't rot out.

Paint? Vinyl? Wire? I'm out of ideas!!!