Critique my Plan

[RachelEllen]

Chicken novice here. I've been working with a friend, who is excellent with woodworking, and we are coming up with a plan to safely house my small chicken flock. I'd love any critiques and answers to a few questions:

Priorities are:
Safely house 3-4 chickens in a suburban/rural environment. There are definitely active predators in our area.
House chickens in low impact way. We want to respect the neighbors and keep the look, sounds and smells (i.e. easy to clean) of chickens to a minimum.

Plan:
Outer run constructed of chicken wire with hardware fabric skirt. Hardware fabric dug 18 inches into group. Run is 6 feet tall with ceiling. Wire is all black for minimum visibility. Footprint 8X8 feet. Friend suggested some sort of solar powered electric tape barrier that I haven't had a chance to research as well.

Inner coop constructed of wood - 3ft X 4ft. He was originally thinking cedar, but I read that that is bad for birds, so he's now suggesting redwood or cyprus. We are doing frame contraction, a linoleum floor for easy cleaning, hardware fabric windows for ventilation, and removable 3 ft roost. He wants to hinge an entire side for easy cleaning as well as having a locking cover on the laying box and a locking door.
The closest thing online to our plan is the Quaker Style I found on this page: http://www.clarkfarmbusiness.com/Chicken-Coops.html


Is there anything we aren't thinking of? I'd like to let the chickens roam, unsupervised, in the run during the day, and lock them in the coop at night for extra protection.

 

[PapaChaz]

the only thing I'd do different than what you described, as you mentioned active predators in the neighborhood is use hardware cloth for the run walls instead of chicken wire. Dogs will go through chicken wire like it's not even there to get to a tasty treat.

Also, you can lay the hardware cloth flat on the ground around the perimeter as an apron instead of burying it. Much easier and just as effective. Acutally might be better, because they'll start at the base of the wall trying to dig and when they hit the wire they'll quit. No holes to have to go back and fill

 

[Sonya9]

1) Add a poop shelf

2) Make the coop bigger, preferably a walk in (you will end up with more chickens than expected, and you will be very glad you went larger rather than smaller).

 

[donrae]

What is your climate? Do you plan on roofing the run? I'm thinking about birds being confined to the coop during bad weather, that space is going to be tight if you've got rain or snow for extended periods of time. Yes, the birds will go out in bad weather but they'll want to spend more time under the shelter. Make the coop itself larger.

 

[RachelEllen]

Thanks all! Will definitely talk about running hardware cloth over the whole run and look into apron vs burying. Poop shelf sounds good too.

I'm wary about going much larger with the coop, both due to cost and keeping a low profile. We live in Georgia, so snow is thankfully rare. Maybe I can look into somehow making the top rainproof.

Any thoughts on the wood choice? We are trying to create something durable yet very natural looking. So cedar was definitely a first choice until I researched further. I'm wondering if redwood or cyprus has any similar pitfalls.