My first thought since you mention “homestead” and a “rooster and 12 hens” is that you will be hatching chicks so you will have a lot more than a dozen chickens at times. Plan for what you will have.
You are absolutely right, I should have said that THIS coop won’t have more than 1 rooster and a dozen hens. If/when we get to the rooster stage then I’m planning on building a second coop. It mainly depends on whether or not we can butcher our own birds (emotionally, not legally!)
And think of making it convenient for you. Don’t worry about making it nice for the chickens, if it is convenient for you they will be OK. You might follow the link in my signature to get some of my ideas about this.
I think I've read most of your links, but I’ll go back and check to see what I've missed.
One of the issues with chickens is that they can create a lot of dust. If you have the coop as part of that pole barn what will you be storing in the other parts of that barn? Will a thick layer of dust bother it? That could have a lot to do with how I’d build the coop. If dust is not a problem I’d consider a lot of wire for the interior walls, not something solid, to help with ventilation.
The coop will be at one end of the barn with the goat pen and parlor at the other end, in between will be space for the tractor, it’s attachments, and garden supplies. The plan is for the wall between the coop and tractor to be solid up to about 8' with ventilation above that.
You don’t need to devote that much room for chickens in the pole barn, that space in there will be too valuable for other things. Especially in your climate I’d put the run outside the barn. I don’t know what you envision for that 1500 square feet run but maybe carve off a smaller section that is highly predator proof next to the coop and have that 1500 more predator-resistant than predator-proof.
You've pretty much described what our plan is, except that the “highly predator proof” portion will be part of the pole barn. The run will be a 4’ wide x approximately 380' long “moat” around our vineyard and garden. It will be 2x4 woven wire no climb fencing on either side with bird netting over the top. Our pop door won’t open from the coop to the covered run but from the covered run to the 1500 sqft run. So the chickens will have access to the 1500 sqft run daily except on the rare occasions where we will be gone overnight. On those occasions they will be “confined” to their covered predator proof run.
As far as the coop itself it needs to be walk-in and you need enough room to move around in there. Since a lot of cheaper building materials come in 4’ or 8’ standard dimensions I’d build an 8x8 or 8x12 coop. That should give you plenty of room for roosts, nests, a broody buster or cage to isolate a chicken if you need to, food and water, and enough clear space for them to fly down from the roosts.
Thank you, this is exactly what I was looking for! I was thinking 4x8 for storage and gear, 8x8 for the coop, and 8x12 for the covered run, but then started debating whether I would require more space for storage, more space for coop, and less for the run (since the run is really just a shady spot for food and water.)
I’d have a human door on the inside of that coop so I could enter it from the pole barn. Store the feed in a metal garbage can outside the coop, the metal cans protect them from mice chewing through the storage containers like they will do with plastic. I’d put some shelves up outside the coop but in that immediate area, no telling what you will store there.
I’d have another human door leading from in the coop to the run. I’d also have a pop door, maybe 12” x 12”, for the chickens to use to go between the coop and run. That way you don’t have to lock the human door open to keep it from slamming shut on a chicken and it will keep weather out. Make both of those doors big enough so you can get a wheelbarrow through them.
I’d put the nests on that interior wall. Yes, great idea! That way they don’t become ovens in your heat from the sun. The roosts would go on the wall furthest from the doors so they are out of your way as much as possible.
I’d make a gate in the larger run I could get my mower or a wheelbarrow through. And I’d build a compost bin in that larger run. This is the plan. You will probably want as much compost as you can get. Let the chickens fertilize it and keep it stirred for you. I’d put a droppings board under the roosts so you can collect pure manure for the compost. I’d just use a flat piece of plywood and no bedding up there at all. This is what we are designing, the only thing we are changing is to use smooth vinyl on the poop board to make it easier to scrape. Some people use PDZ, sand, wood shavings, or something else on the droppings board. In suburbia they may need that but for what you are doing you do not.
That’s enough to get started. Give yourself as much flexibility as you can and make it convenient for you. Your chickens will benefit if you treat yourself well.
