After almost 6 months of construction our coop is finally ready for our chicks! The overall design was inspired by many people here on BYC. We didn't really start with any written down design but I knew the overall size I wanted. Neither my husband nor I had ever built anything this big before and didn't really have all the right tools but we made due with what we had! We tried to build everything out of materials we found on craigs list. We ended up finding all the materials used for the base of the coop as well as all the windows for FREE!! We did have to buy a significant amount of materials after that. But, I feel like I have my dream coop after all this time and money! So, let me show you some pictures of our hard work.
This is the very first weekend we worked on the coop back from October. After clearing the land for this area, I ended up getting poison ivy for 5 weeks and had to go on steroids for 2 weeks. It was extremely painful, but totally worth it in the end. So, like I said, the overall design was inspired by months of lurking through "coop designs" section of BYC. I thank everyone who posted their pictures to give us all these great ideas for our coop. The overall demensions of the coop are 8x6 with a roof height slanting from 8 feet to 4 feet (front to back)
All the walls are up and my DH and 3 year old are working on the roof. We're keeping the eaves open for maximum ventilation which will all be enclosed with hardware cloth.
We ended up finding 6 free windows on Craigs List. They ended up being perfect for our coop. They all open so we can keep airflow in the heat of the summer. We put those in and finished putting the T-111 up, made a custom door and put all the molding up.
We just cleared out the land we're going to use for the run.... The run will be 10ftx20ft with a roof over 3/4 of it to protect the chickens from rain/snow (we live in CT and we get a lot of that stuff)
We used the bobcat to level the land as much as possible. Then brought in a layer of fill soil, then a 4 inch layer of gravel and topped it off with about 6 inches of playground sand
This is the beginning of the run
Before putting the gravel and sand down, we put down some welded wire to prevent burrowing predators
And the final product!!!! We added an electric fence which starts at about 6 inches from the ground then wraps around again at 1 foot, 2 feet and 3 feet. (It maybe a little over kill but we live in the woods and I know we have coons, coyote, fisher cats and bear.
Here are some pictures of the inside of the coop
We've already hung a gutter system to collect the rain water from both the coop and the run roofs. We just got a 55gallon drum so we'll be hooking that all up soon.
Hope you've enjoyed looking at our coop. Any suggestions to help make it safer would be greatly appreciated
ETA: one more picture of the run
This is the very first weekend we worked on the coop back from October. After clearing the land for this area, I ended up getting poison ivy for 5 weeks and had to go on steroids for 2 weeks. It was extremely painful, but totally worth it in the end. So, like I said, the overall design was inspired by months of lurking through "coop designs" section of BYC. I thank everyone who posted their pictures to give us all these great ideas for our coop. The overall demensions of the coop are 8x6 with a roof height slanting from 8 feet to 4 feet (front to back)
All the walls are up and my DH and 3 year old are working on the roof. We're keeping the eaves open for maximum ventilation which will all be enclosed with hardware cloth.
We ended up finding 6 free windows on Craigs List. They ended up being perfect for our coop. They all open so we can keep airflow in the heat of the summer. We put those in and finished putting the T-111 up, made a custom door and put all the molding up.
We just cleared out the land we're going to use for the run.... The run will be 10ftx20ft with a roof over 3/4 of it to protect the chickens from rain/snow (we live in CT and we get a lot of that stuff)
We used the bobcat to level the land as much as possible. Then brought in a layer of fill soil, then a 4 inch layer of gravel and topped it off with about 6 inches of playground sand
This is the beginning of the run
Before putting the gravel and sand down, we put down some welded wire to prevent burrowing predators
And the final product!!!! We added an electric fence which starts at about 6 inches from the ground then wraps around again at 1 foot, 2 feet and 3 feet. (It maybe a little over kill but we live in the woods and I know we have coons, coyote, fisher cats and bear.
Here are some pictures of the inside of the coop
We've already hung a gutter system to collect the rain water from both the coop and the run roofs. We just got a 55gallon drum so we'll be hooking that all up soon.
Hope you've enjoyed looking at our coop. Any suggestions to help make it safer would be greatly appreciated
ETA: one more picture of the run
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