coop with open roof in cold climate

[geekgurl]

Glad I read this thread. I built the garden coop and closing up that area above the coop is great advice. Thank you, fellow BYCers!

 

[jgervais]

Were only in week 2 with ours, but we LOVE it!
It was in the low 30's at night when I put them out in their coop for the first time. I used a board to cover 1/3 of the top of the roosting house, and no heat lamp. They did great.
I have 6in of bedding in the roosting house using the deep litter method: it has been raining just about everyday since I put them in their coop for the past 2 weeks and everything is so nice and dry in there! I thought with the open top it would get wet, but it has been just great! I dont think i will have any problems at all this winter! Really happy with the design

heres our coop - all finished:
http://simplelifeainteasy.blogspot.com/2011/05/best-chicken-coop-ever.html

 

[CRYROLFE]

I love your coop jgervais....sooo cool! I thought the ramp looked pretty steep too. We haven't gotten to that part yet. Putting up our roof today on our Garden Coop.
I hope it will be big enough for 8 chickens...what do you think?

Geekgurl....I love the bottle cap idea....and we'll be stealing that.

 

[jgervais]

we modified ours a bit as you can see and placed the nest boxes on the outside instead of the inside like The Garden Coop plan follows. We also made the roost house 1ft wider than the plan called for. We have 7 chicks, 8 weeks old, and there is a TON of room. Especially if you free range some of the time.

We also built my mom one, put the nest boxes on the outside but left everything else pretty much the same dimensions, she has 6 chicks, also with plenty of room to grow.
Heres my moms coop - very similar to ours:
http://simplelifeainteasy.blogspot.com/2011/04/one-coop-down-one-more-to-go.html

I would think with the original plan, you could comfortably fit 8 chicks. 10 would probably be pushing it.

 

[jgervais]

oh yeh!! i just noticed the bottle caps! Too cool!

 

[geekgurl]

Glad you like the bottle cap idea. I was using lots of those washers and they aren't cheap. When you use the bottle caps, I found it easiest to use 1" lath screws and start drilling through the cap against the ground first. I would start lots of those and keep them in my toolbelt so when putting up the hardware cloth, I just had to grab and drill.

Hope that roof went on easy. I remember putting on my roof and it was a beast.

Cheers,
Melissa