Coop remodel--suggestions?

[feather13]

Hi BYCers! I've been lurking on this forum for years, feeling a lot of coop envy as I've read about your beautiful coops and all the very helpful construction posts.

I have some questions about my coop and would appreciate any and all suggestions. Our coop is kind of like Frankenstein's monster with three connected areas that can each be closed off. It consists of a handmade coop someone gave me that has two nesting boxes and a decent-sized run connected to a dog run I bought off craigslist and covered with a metal roof and hardware cloth connected to a fairly large handmade run that is also covered in hardware cloth.

For most of the day, our three hens free range in a nearly half acre orchard, but I coop them up every night. We're going to cover the coop and run areas with sand on Wednesday. We live in southern California and have debated for years about the best flooring for us. Pine shavings drive me crazy because they are so messy and the dirt floor looks awful and uneven.

We're getting ready to introduce 12 chicks (so there will be 15 chickens in total... 14 chickens and 1 rooster) and I would like to know if you think the coop and two runs will be ok for all of them on the rare occasions when they are not allowed to free range? None of the chickens have ever been crazy about sleeping in the coop, especially in the summer, so I'm guessing they'll be sleeping on roosts all over the place.

What else can we add to the runs to make them more interesting to the chickens and less bored? What can we do to make the coop and run more aesthetically pleasing?

Photo 1: View inside the dog kennel run. There's an old door on a tree stump the chickens like to hang out on

Photo 2: View into the coop with a now very old curtain I made

Photo 3: View into the run from the only door. I'd really welcome any suggestions about what to do with all this space (p.s. all the junk on the ground will be gone and I'm also getting better feeders and waterers... galvanized steel rusts like crazy and all the neighborhood birds eat from the feeder)

Photo 3: View from inside the run looking out the door (there's a lime tree growing inside the run)

Photo 4: View from outside the run with the door closed

Photo 5: View of the covered dog kennel run and our beehive : )

Thanks in advance! I always appreciate the advice of people here.

 

[perkolator]

If they have the other half acre to roam around on they may be totally fine space-wise, especially if they have a few objects to perch on to get away from one another every now and then.
Aesthetically I think just adding a single ground cover over everything will make for great visual improvement. I would personally go toward a truckload of wood chips for the soil improvements and critters, but that’s me. Painting some wood here and there so the wood components all match may help too.

 

[feather13]

If they have the other half acre to roam around on they may be totally fine space-wise, especially if they have a few objects to perch on to get away from one another every now and then.
Aesthetically I think just adding a single ground cover over everything will make for great visual improvement. I would personally go toward a truckload of wood chips for the soil improvements and critters, but that’s me. Painting some wood here and there so the wood components all match may help too.

Thank you so much for your comments and suggestions! I think I definitely need to add more perches and paint everything to match. Wouldn't wood chips be hard to clean? I'm leaning towards sand since I can just sift through it with a cat littler scoop. Thanks again!

 

[perkolator]

With the wood chips you pretty much leave them in place to decompose as the chickens dig in them and stir it up. After a while add more chips or rake some out and replace. Use the old stuff in compost/garden.

 

[3KillerBs]

Wouldn't wood chips be hard to clean?

You don't clean the wood chips.

Wood chips (high carbon), plus chicken manure (high nitrogen), react together in the presence of moisture (not sogginess, just moisture), and the necessary beneficial microorganisms (picked up from ground contact or seeded in by adding a few shovels of mature, active compost*), to create compost.

You maintain it by throwing a few handfuls of scratch into the litter periodically to harness the power of chicken labor to keep it stirred up and by breaking up any crusted areas with the manure fork if necessary.

Should you get a hint of odor or develop excess crusting you add another layer of wood chips or other "compost brown" materials.

*If you don't have a compost pile you can get the same effect by raking some old, partially-broken down leaf litter out of the woods/from under a hedge as available.

 

[feather13]

You don't clean the wood chips.

Wood chips (high carbon), plus chicken manure (high nitrogen), react together in the presence of moisture (not sogginess, just moisture), and the necessary beneficial microorganisms (picked up from ground contact or seeded in by adding a few shovels of mature, active compost*), to create compost.

@perkolator and @3KillerBs : Thanks so much for clarifying how to use wood chips! I have them in some places in my small orchard, but have never thought of using them in the coop and run.

 

[aart]

Wood chips (high carbon), plus chicken manure (high nitrogen), react together in the presence of moisture (not sogginess, just moisture), and the necessary beneficial microorganisms (picked up from ground contact or seeded in by adding a few shovels of mature, active compost*), to create compost.

Not sure it would create 'compost'(as in garden soil worthy compost),
but it will break down the poops so they don't stink.
Not sure you even need active compost added, the bio on the wood chippings should be enough.