Coop with a second floor?

[jimk]

I live in the city with a small yard. I have a small (100ish square foot) run and a very small coop for four hens. I also let them out into our fenced yard on the weekends and summer evenings.

I've been thinking that if I relocated my coop to the other end of the run that it would be easier to clean and get better winter sunlight. But to do it the coop would have to be about 4'x4' square. I know this is the bare minimum square footage for the number of hens we have. But I was thinking, what if I built what was essentially two coops that size and set them one on top of the other? I could even have a ramp from the first floor to the second. Both levels would have room for an outside mounted nesting box, food, water and a couple of roosts, and in theory the inside ramp could be hinged so that if I ever needed to separate a bird I could just close up the ramp and have two completely separate rooms. I'm imagining a full height door for clean out and access, and the second floor would be completely removable for when I really need to get inside for a scrubbing.

I'm imagining each floor would be about 3 or 3 1/2 feet tall, so the whole thing with a gently sloped roof would be just over 8' tall.

Any thoughts? Would the hens even use the first floor or would they all cram onto the second floor? What am I not thinking about? One feature from my current coop that I would definitely keep are the "poop drawers." Instead of just a board below the roosts, I have a wide shallow drawer that can be pulled out from outside the coop and emptied into the compost bin without even opening the main door.

 

[Imp]

I have a 2 story coop, using a rubbermaid shed. I have a ramp too. I find the chickens really don't use the bottom floor so I rarely need to clean. It is about 3 x 7 ft. I have food and water on the first floor. Nest buckets and roosts on the second floor. Everything comes out for easy cleaning.

Imp

 

[patandchickens]

Quote:
They're not going to use it as if it were all one coop, so I would not count on it materially easing any crowding or crampedness the hens may feel.

If the ramp were exterior to the 4x4 coop (enclosed of course, but, I mean, not occupying any of that 4x4 area) then I would say sure, why not, can't hurt and might help. HOWEVER if you put the ramp *inside* that 4x4 area, it will actually REDUCE the amount of usable area they have on either floor, by a considerable degree, which would IMO be a bad thing.

What is the reason that the coop can't be bigger than 4x4 at that end of the run... couldn't it be bigger but raised up so that they still have run space under it? That might let you have the best of both worlds.

Good luck, have fun,

Pat