Cooping it up; Suggestions on the design?

[Nyowpotopop]

Oooh, I'm in Ohio too as you can see (though pretty far north). We do get snakes up here but as you may know the worst thing we have is the Black rat snake, which at five feet long can totes eat a chicken... But it's really rare to find ones that big around these parts whew I am. As such I think I'll seriously consider the rocks... Since even the monster foxes we get can't dig through solid stone.

In regards to the nest boxes I have heard both ways.... And I figure having the second won't hurt if two hens wanna lay at the same time.

 

[HEChicken]

Pallets come in different sizes, so I'll be using whatever I can find and cutting them down to size if required. I could use straw but that requires buying straw. Probably doesn't seem like a lot to add something like $5 of straw to the project but I can get newspapers from my parents for free and have heard they make GREAT insulation. As soon as we start to close on the house we want they will start saving their daily newspapers for me and by the time I need them there'll be tons... Enough to maybe even use as litter.
The particle board I was just going to tack onto the top of the pallets. Why cut them to fit in the slots when I could just toss them on top and nail them in? The outside of the pallets will be covered in hardwood or plywood depending on what I find. It's my intention to salvage shelving units from the neighborhoods that have apartments (which means lots of discarded furniture) and craigslist... The particle board pieces go inside the rest (the more heavy-duty stuff) goes on the outside.
I have some space (if you look that the design it's all to scale give or take some paper warping) to expand the nest boxes up so it shouldn't be too hard to make them taller. I will make them a little thinner too... And that's fine by me. Less wood, really.

Oh, okay - that makes sense. I would probably skip on lining the inside though as the particle board will get damp and rot in no time with the exposure to chicken poop and moisture from exhalations in winter. Many people don't worry about insulating at all - including some chicken keepers in Alaska. We get pretty cold here but my coop is both uninsulated and unheated - they cope really well with cold weather as they wear a layer of down under the outside feathers. The main thing you want to look at it is plenty of ventilation, but no drafts. Draftiness is what will cause them to have cold-related issues, but ventilation is crucial. Their exhalations are very moist and many a well-meaning person has created a lovely, cozy, insulated coop, only to find their birds have frost-bite as the exhalations cause such high humidity that their combs get frostbitten from it. I've never had a case of frostbite by always allowing plenty of air to escape the coop - the opposite of insulation, if you will.

Also, you were asking about size/ratios. The general rule of thumb is 4 sq ft per bird in the coop and 10 sq ft per bird in the run.

Oh - and I agree with caj1985 about only needing one nest box for that number of hens. You might even skip on building one per se. My first nest box was just an old covered cat litter box I had lying around. I put a little hay in the bottom and it was perfect for them.

 

[Nyowpotopop]

Well, I would someday like to expand to five hens. So I think I will keep the nestboxes in my design. The particle board will be painted with an outdoor paint (still working on finding this cheap/free, maybe my parents will have some?Garage sales? Who knows...) to resist things like chicken poop but it's actually important both to provide a solid floor over the pallets and help reinforce the pallets for weight distribution. I don't want something silly to happen like "I slipped and fell on the coop and it to break and now I have no coop". I've seen too many things like that.

The particle board spreads the weight over the pallet for even distribution. If you were like me in early gradschool you did the experiment of laying a foot long ruler on a table with just a few inches on the table (clearly about to fall) and then by laying a spread out newspaper across it and the ruler stayed on the table. The concept is the same. :3 I want this thing to LAST.

As for ventillation I suppose I should make a note of it on the front but after reading for a while I have decided to leave a gap in the roof and little/no insulation in the roof. The way this will work is just like a vent in a fancy coop. The warm air can filter up over the walls where it'll get colder and sink out towards the vent gap allowing for air motion in the coop. I will just put a latticework or wire over the vents to make sure nothing breaks in.

 

[crazychickenwom]

Another idea for you floor is find someone who is tearing out old hardwood and replacing it. When I started my project my parent's neighbor was doing just that. I got enough wood to lay down 100 year oak flooring in the coop, as well as floor joists to support it, and had enough big pieces left to make 2 of the doors, and I still have some 3 - 4 ft pieces to make a craft project with. The floor was too old and in rough condition but is perfect for my chickens. Didn't even have to paint it, I don't figure they can ruin something that survived 100 years in a house! Living in Central Ohio I was somewhat worried about the cold too, but much reading later I decided I needed to worry more about the heat rather than the cold, chickens fair much better in colder weather than hot weather. I added as much ventilation as possible, knowing that I can always cover some up in the winter if I need too, much easier than adding more holes later!

 

[HEChicken]

As for ventillation I suppose I should make a note of it on the front but after reading for a while I have decided to leave a gap in the roof and little/no insulation in the roof. The way this will work is just like a vent in a fancy coop. The warm air can filter up over the walls where it'll get colder and sink out towards the vent gap allowing for air motion in the coop. I will just put a latticework or wire over the vents to make sure nothing breaks in.

Excellent! That is exactly what I did with mine. I haven't updated my "My Coop" page for weeks because in our move I'm not sure where the camera cable ended up, to download the pics from my camera, but eventually I'll get there. I just got done building a 10x14 coop and it has both a metal roof and metal siding because......the materials were free. The roofing material was donated to me by a guy who had them left over from a barn he had re-roofed and the siding I found under the pole barn at our new property. I hadn't planned on a metal coop but....free is free. I was worried about it being too hot but two things keep it from being overly hot. First is that I used particle board on the walls under the metal siding. This makes a tremendous difference to how hot it gets. Second is that I did exactly what you suggested above. I have a steep peak on my roof and at the top there was a 2-3" gap. I found a piece of what is supposed to be a corner for a metal building, also in our pole barn, but I used it as a ridge cap. Because it is a 6x6 piece, it fit over the ridge of the roof much higher, leaving a gap for air to flow. So the heat rises up in the coop and out through the ridge cap.

We've had temps of 105+ every day this week so it has been a true test of the coop. I go down there multiple times every day and the temperature in the coop is never noticeably hotter inside than outside, so I guess it is working out okay.

 

[Nyowpotopop]

Well if I can find better wood than taking apart old shelves I gladly will use it! I put this design together with old shelves in mind though because there are ALWAYS old shelves and dressers being handed out for free around here. (I have seen an unusually large number of pianos too but that doesn't help me build a coop.) I'll just have to see what all is around when I go to make my coop! I'm glad that roof ventilation works out so well. I also have windows built into the coop access doors if you look. Between the two of those things and the chicken door itself I think the coop can get enough ventilation. If needed I can always add one more window - this one above the chicken door in-between the nest boxes.