TheRealWitwiki
Songster
Hello crazy chicken friends! Looking for suggestions, ideas, answers, whatever you want to reply back with. Pictures of your own coop maybe? So I have a coop. Who doesn't these days!? Mine is old. It's ugly. I'm sure my wife thinks it's an eye sore. I absolutely love it. The best part it came with our house. Yes at the end of our property next to the woods and our creek there was an old 8x10 barn shed. It was full of spider webs, old junk and leaves from several seasons. To the average person it was a junky old pile of potential firewood, but inside something caught my eye. It was a chicken house! Abandoned and run down of course, but that is my speciality! See I fix things...I always have since I was a kid. It's been my career for the past 17 years. I repair, renovate, remodel houses. Inside and out, whatever the task I can most likely do it or figure it out. So back to the story...inside of this place there was a pen area. Two doors with a divider in the middle. One side there are 16 nesting boxes and the other side used to have a roost. There were outlets and an old fluorescent light fixture, even a switch to turn it on and off. So to get to some type of point here I fixed some things. The door to the shed literally looked like a western saloon. The bottom was missing and predators could just help themselves so I fixed that. I cleaned the entire place out and put fresh bedding in the pen and straw in the 16 too many nesting boxes. I rebuilt the roost so the chickens could sleep somewhere other than the nesting boxes. We also built an outside pen and a chicken door that I operate with a pull string twice a day. So you're thinking ok now you have a good coop what is your problem. I didn't mention the roof has been leaking for who knows how long and has a raccoon ready hole in it. The wood is deteriorating around the bottom of the shed outside. Last summer I vacuumed at least 300 spider crickets (sprickets) cave crickets whatever you want to call them, from the roof inside where it's wet. There's occasional mice that visit if the outside cats don't catch them first. So what do I want from you guys? Look I'm like anyone else...I have a family, house, bills, etc. keeping chickens is my hobby. Sometimes it gets expensive with everything else going on. I'm in no way a cheapskate and am thinking about just buying a finished shed and having it delivered, but there is that part of me saying save money replace all of the rotted wood it's just a coop. Now if I could splurge I definitely wood get a Carolina Coop and have the nicest one in town, but I also feel like chickens are just as happy in a decent coop that isn't as fancy. Plus it's a tad bit sentimental seeing how the kids helped build the pen outside. We used new wood and old wood and I just let them be part of the process. Anyone go through something similar and what did you decide to do? Plus any ideas on how to structure the inside...I have 11 chickens and now 4 ducks. I would like less nesting boxes and maybe a section for broody hens where they can hatch eggs in peace. Any input will be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
I'm not a builder, so I can't help you here!
