Coop in garage?

[Kidhenduckohmy]

I am thinking of building my coop in a corner of the garage. Never seems to have the cars in it anyway. I am thinking 10x14. Just wondering what to do with floor. It is cement. How can I make it easy to wash? Would I just bring walls flush with floor, or do I need a raised floor?
When making those ladder perches how far apart are they so the higher chickens do not poop on lower ones?
Can you put an outlet inside coop for heated bowls in wintertime?
Should I insulate it? We live in the upper penninsula of Michigan.
Any other must haves for your favorite coop?

 

[Judy]

Sounds like a great coop! If I were doing that, I wouldn't have a different floor. I believe I'd make a single layer wall base of concrete blocks cemented together so I could hose it out without fear of rotting the bottom of the walls. I think being in a garage is plenty of insulation for them in iteself, even up there. Just be sure there is plenty of air exchange at its high point so humidity does not build up in there; it is mostly humidity that causes frostbite, not low temps. You might even want to make the top foot or two of "wall" out of hardware cloth, so you can get plenty of air movement in the summer.

I have several outlets in my coop. The wires run up the wall inside pipe so the chickens can't peck them, then across the roof rafters, which is where the outlets are. Sorry, I don't know a thing about ladder roosts, as I don't like them. It seems to me it would cause more competition at roost time, since they relate roost position ot pecking order. But then, plenty of people use them. I have a similar, good sized walk in coop but the roosts are all 30" so the larger birds won't injure hips flying down.

We have a couple of excellent articles, written some years ago by a Canadian, that I always like to link, expecially for our northern members:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/...-go-out-there-and-cut-more-holes-in-your-coop

https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/winter-coop-temperatures

 

[Kidhenduckohmy]

Good ideas. How hard would it be to do the cement block thing? I will be making this coop myself with my 10 year old. Thats part of the reason for me putting it in the garage, so I didn't have to deal with a roof. I was thinking of using pressure treated wood? But if cement is easy enough for someone who has never done it it does sound like it would be great!
I was wondering about if I needed insulation of not. I do plan on having the hay right next to the north wall of coop.
Hardware cloth is a good idea. I was wondering how I was going to do the venting.
This may seem a stupid question, but how do you plug in waterers if the outlets are in the rafters? Thanks for your time.

 

[Judy]

I've never cemented blocks, either, just watched it done, and it probably won't look too professional, but it's the sort of thing the clerk at Home Depot will know what you need for. I'll bet you can find something on the web about it, too. Pressure treated wood also occurred to me, but if you start hosing out the coop against it, it won't last forever. Of course you should be able to leave the litter for a good amount of time if you keep it deep and don't have a lot of birds in there.

Haha, I didn't think of plugging in a waterer, because I don't have to plug in a waterer here. -- and there aren't any stupid questions! I guess I'd wire it differently up there!