Designing and Building my Fisrt Coop and run, in So. Cal.

[csnail]

Back in the Spring, and much to my surprise, my Hubby consented to keeping laying chickens on the premises. His mom used to keep chickens in suburbia. We are nearly suburbia, but not quite. The important thing is it is perfectly legal to keep chickens in my city, and even a roo, if it doesn't disturb the neighbors. Many of my neighbors keep laying hens, and one or two have a roo. Anyway, its been a very busy summer and I haven't had time to get started, until now. We agreed on a site, and now I finally have time to design and build. Living in So. Cal., climate isn't a huge concern. Predators are a concern. Coyotes, bobcats, hawks, owls, racoons, skunks, weasels, snakes, and occasionally a mountain lion are known visitors to the area. And then there are my own two dogs and the cat.

I'm using a 12' x 12' area next to my raised bed garden. The site is sloped, and the coop will sit on legs are the bottom of the slope. Not ideal, but I think we can make it work. We don't get much rain, but when we do, it all seems to want to come at once, so we've dug french drains along the sides to help direct any runoff away from the run area. One of my chicken owning friends tagged a custom shipping crate at her workplace for me, so I have some free building materials.

The bottom of the crate is 6' x6', a nice size for a big coop. Eventually, I'd like to keep as many as 12 hens, so this works out. Good news, free materials. But, I have to figure out the best way to use the materials. We had a 4x6x10 beam sitting around, and that turned out to make perfect legs for setting up the coop. I went to my local big box hardware store and found some 'Oops' stain and exterior paint. Can't say enough about the Oops paint section. $8 or $9 a gallon, for the premium stuff. So I painted and stained and dug french drains and now we have this; the house is to the west, left is south, and so on.

 

[Ursuline Chick]

Our run is next to the kitchen garden (about 14' x 20' garden) after harvest, DH opens the fence and allows the chickens to graze there as well as the run. Now, all plants that could be harmfull to the girls have to be removed first. But they clear everything out, including bugs and provide free fertilizer. Good luck with your project.

 

[csnail]

Our run is next to the kitchen garden (about 14' x 20' garden) after harvest, DH opens the fence and allows the chickens to graze there as well as the run. Now, all plants that could be harmfull to the girls have to be removed first. But they clear everything out, including bugs and provide free fertilizer. Good luck with your project.

Thanks! I do have a small raised bed garden now, with room for expansion. I'm really hoping the chickens with help with the garden pests, we've had so many grasshoppers!

 

[csnail]

Way behind on updates! I spent very much time on Sketchup, trying out different ideas. Very much time.

I'm sure it helped, even if I didn't build exactly what I modeled.


Since I was working with a packing crate, some of the wall partitions were already 'framed', 1/2" plywood over 2x2"s. The 2x2"s were attached with ridiculously long staples, I feared I'd wreck the plywood if I tried prying things apart, so I just figured out how I could make the pieces work. I didn't take the base apart, just used it as it was. 3/4" plywood over 5 2x4"s, roughly 6x6'. One of my neighbors was taking down a patio shade structure, so I'm reusing a bunch of 2x3" pieces from that.

The coop will have a sloped roof, screened in ventilation under the eaves on all 4 sides. The low side of the coop will be 3 1/2' and the high side will be 4'. Two people doors, interior nest boxes, sliding pop door, and room for a second pop door in the future. Roofing will be corrugated pvc.

 

[csnail]

Updates continued...
Oh yeah, building with screws. Lots and lots of screws. My success rate with hammering nails in straight is... nearly nonexistent. Plus, screws make it easier to take something apart if you have to redo it. Ask me how I know. Also, I can't usually put screws in straight either.
Here is one of my tips: Helper blocks. Those short pieces of 2x3" you can see at the bottom of the plywood in this picture. I screwed them into place, then I could rest the piece of plywood on them while I screwed it into place. Then I removed the helper blocks. With the exception of putting the base on the legs, which my husband and sons helped with, I built the rest of this on my own. Except for the time Hubby brought me a freshly charged battery for the impact driver.

Oops paints and stains.

Started painting.

Thought I'd mix the white paint with the brown paint to get light brown paint. Didn't exactly work out. I ended up with purple. Had a bunch, so I embellished the inside of the coop. Hope the hens won't mind.

Even straight from the can, the paint goes on looking purple, then dries to this lovely dark brown.

 

[TwinsLoveChicks]

Looking Amazing!

 

[csnail]

Still updating...

I decided to make the south facing door a 'screen door'. I discovered that making straight cuts is pretty important to making a straight door frame. Only took 2 tries. Got both doors hung mostly straight. They work really well, I guess that's what counts. Many times, I'd hit a spot where I didn't quite know what to do. I'd take a little break and figure something out and get back to it. After the walls were all up, I used the circular saw to plunge cut the egg door and the pop door. I'd never tried that before. It worked ok. Not perfect, but got the job done.
Thank goodness for trim pieces/furring strips.

One of the things I didn't anticipate was how the slope of the ground would affect how I interact with the people doors. The door on the south side, I can lean right in, the bottom of the coop hits me about high hip height. The door on the east side (solid door) hits me much lower. If I put a piece of wood across the top of the door opening, I'll hit my head on it. Over and over. Instead, I built a small screen door at the top, it's hinged and I can fasten it up out of the way when I need to get into the coop there. When the door is closed, it locks the screen door into place.
The rafters in place. The I added the purlins.
They're about 19" apart. I'm installing a Palruf roof. I'm hoping that if a bobcat jumps on the roof, the panels won't collapse.
Job site supervisor shows up.
Once the purlins were in place, I added the 1/2" hardware mesh to enclose the area between the top of the wall and the roof. Then I started adding the Palruf panels. I decided its a good thing the panels are only 26" wide, as that is just about as far as I could reach to fasten the screws. Barely. Speaking of screws, remember to drill the holes in the panels before commencing attaching the panels to the purlins. It all worked out pretty well.

 

[CapricornFarm]

Good job!

 

[csnail]

This update gets me current. The pop door needed finishing, the egg door needed attaching, decisions need making as to what type of latches everything will get. I decided to make a sliding pop door. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. The cable was left over from another project, as were the eyebolts. I did have to buy ferrules, a pulley and a couple of locking links.
Now the pop door is done, and the egg door attached, and the nest box area has its top. I still need to figure how/what I will do for latches. But that can wait. I need to start working on the run.
The pop door cable. I can open and close the door from outside the coop/run.
The roosts are in. There is room to add more if need be.
Another job site supervisor. The dogs really like sleeping under the coop while I work on it. I think they'll be disappointed once the fencing blocks everything off.

One of the reasons we want a nice secure fence.

 

[csnail]

Good job!

Thanks! I'm enjoying the process.mostly.