Did you ever buy a prefab coop? Give a review!

[BDutch]

If you ever bought a prefab coop, please give a review and tell the world what happened with it.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/reviews/categories/coops-runs-housing.15/
Purpose: prevent others to make mistakes in choosing a coop.

 

[Iluveggers]

Thanks to research on BYC, we bought a homemade 4x5 coop from CL with the plan to stick with 5 chicks. We are not very handy and I wanted something strong & sturdy. However our contractor friend saw it and said “you’re going to want more chickens than that will hold”. So he helped us build an 8x8 coop with 8x20 run. Aside from roofing, hardware cloth, and a few sheets of plywood, we had everything else left over from a project, including matching siding from our house. Tell about the luckiest thing that could have happened! We have 10 chickens with a plan to add 5 more this summer. We have an attached fenced garden next to the run with an additional 800 sq ft or so, and the girls use that area when we are home (& there’s no snow.)

I wish there was an affordable option for people who don’t know how to build. Small sheds are probably the best option for people who want a decent size flock.

 

[Shadrach]

I bought a prefab coop. It's been great. I've rolled it around most of the allotment now. Try doing that with yer average wooden prefab! Chicken love it but I do keep getting left notes from the chickens asking if a can put it the other way up.

I've got a lot to write about prefab coops (there's a surprise) and I have two almost completed articles on this very subject (yet another surprise; the almost complete bit anyway).

 

[Brizi]

The Gambrel Roof XL (My Pet Chicken)

Pros
- It's about 18 sq ft inside.
- It's got about 8 ft of roosting space.
- The roosting bars are at a decent height.
- It has very roomy nesting boxes.
- The pull out tray is awesome if you're not using the deep litter method.
- It's one of the better priced prefabs for its size.

Cons
- It lacks ventilation, like most prefabs.
- It's definitely not large enough for the advertised 9-12 chickens. I personally wouldn't put more than 4-5 (standard-size) in here, even if you added a bunch of ventilation.


In Conclusion
This coop served its purpose for the time we had it. I'm sure that some modifications could be made to make it much better, like adding more ventilation. That said, I'm not sure that it's worth the $1,000 price tag. I got it for a cheaper price years ago. If you really want to go the prefab route, I'd strongly suggest checking places like Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace. For example, there's a guy in my area that sells nice 6x4 coops for $700. I wish I'd have bought that or built my own instead!

 

[RoyalChick]

When I first got chickens it was following a school project. The kid built a coop to a design similar to many prefabs. It was 8’x4’ with an elevated coop and a ramp.
The kid got 4 chicks to live in the coop.
At the end of the school year I had agreed to take on the chickens and their coop.
I had no experience with chickens but even at 8 weeks old it was obvious that they needed more space to run around.
It was also obvious that I needed more space to interact and enjoy being with them.
I went all in and now they have a 14’x10’ hen house with four attached secure runs (10’x12’, 8’x12’, 4’x12’, 4’x12’), they also get to ‘free range’ most days within a roughly 350’ electric fence.
Watching their behavior I have concluded that I have finally hit their comfort zone in terms of the space they actually use.

 

[NagemTX]

The prefab I bought was more an open air pen. Added wood frame around the bottom to attach hardware cloth to for extra predator protection and will be adding either a tarp or building a covered roost and nesting boxes. I'll post a link in an edit.

Picture of it instead of Amazon link.
View attachment 3421405

And another note. I do not like the door and latch so with the other added things we will be devising a home made door. It will be heavy and sturdy like my hoop coop door. Lol, my hoop coop is over kill but it keeps the coons out.

 

[FC16]

When I first started keeping chickens I bought a prefab, biggest mistake I made! Was like a little dolls house. They’re okay for a few chickens, but as everyone knows in most cases you never just have ‘a few chickens’ for a while. Always better off building your own or repurposing an old shed/barn. The small prefabs can be quite useful for easing chicks in though I must say.

 

[GCrumb]

Formex Snap-Lock Big Chicken Coop

We have two, and love them. I did not pay full price, $920 is far too much for me. I bought both of them off craigslist on two separate occassions, one for $250 and one for $160 (and a long drive to a remote little town to get it.)

They pop together easily. They are harder to get apart and seem proof against any predator but a bear. They are a snap to clean.

They are very light which may be good for you 'cause you can move them about, or may mean that you need to build wooden stands and sink posts so the wind doesn't move them about.

People here will consider the vents inadequate. I have no problems but I live in a dry and windy place.

Heavy snow load made the roofs slump once but it's easy to sweep them off. I keep imagining the things will crack in very cold weather but they have not done so. They're both about four years old and look brand new. Low-quality plastic stuff fades and grows brittle in the sun in a year or two.

THEY ARE TINY.

It says the coop will fit twelve standard breed chickens. It is roosting space and nestbox space for twelve standard sized chickens. I have eight and very often they do all bundle into one coop for the night, and yeah, there's enough roost-bar for four more in there, but sometimes they split up and I wonder if there would be problems if they had to sleep cheek to jowl every night. There's no question of leaving them in the coop all day, they need to get out no matter the weather and I'm sure they would even if it was just two per coop.

With a large run that includes 'gazebo' shade and windbreak shelters for daytime hang-outs we're happy. If it was a wet climate I might want something else. Shoveling little paths through the snow in the chicken run so they can walk between the coops and shelters is fun only when you don't have to do it very often, and I don't like it when they go to roost wet after a rare rainy day.

 

[HenriettaPizzaNolan]

Aivituvin 78.4 inch coop

I regret buying this because for the nearly $300 I paid, I could have put that money toward a better coop, since I had to replace this one anyway.

This coop is made of extremely cheap wood that was even splintering as we screwed the pieces together. You can really only fit 2 standard sized birds in there, and even then it's not great because there is really nowhere to roost. The "roosts" are about an inch from the bottom and my chickens just preferred to sleep in the nesting box. That meant daily nest box cleanup for me, and a better possibility of mites/lice for my chickens since they weren't roosting.

The run is too small so I had to purchase a "run" (I know now it's better to just build all this stuff myself), which gave them more space but was an absolute piece of crap. The "man door" was barely big enough for an oompa loompa and I was always hitting my head. The door always got jammed.

Also, I'm happy we got a new coop before winter. This thing would have been way too drafty and I bet I would have seen more illness and frostbite. Especially with the lack of ventilation.

I'd say the only good things about the coop were the nesting box and the little spring loaded locks on the doors. Besides that, complete crap. Save yourself the money.

Advice I wish I would have listened to before buying this:
Don't rush into chicken keeping with one of these coops or you're just making more work for yourself down the road. Do it right the first time and be set for years to come.

 

[SituationalLefty]

I bought the "Club House Coop" from My Pet Chicken. Their description says it will house 2-6 chickens.

It is cute as a bug and totally useless for a flock. Notice there are no chickens or people here to give this a sense of size/proportion. This doll-house coop is not big enough for a single chicken long-term. It is not even 4 square feet on the interior. he run is less than 2 feet wide and less than 4 feet long. The company has recently added lots of CYA description, including dimensions, which are given in inches instead of feet. They say it has "plenty of roosting and nesting space" (>4 sq ft) and an "extra deep droppings trays" (only one, and it's 1.5 inches deep).

Another example of misinformation: though the description says it takes a half hour to assemble, it took me and my husband half a day plus. Lashing the hardware cloth to the bottom of the coop and run was an additional 3-hour job. I have intermediate carpentry skills and good power tools.

I'm beginning with chickens and was taken in. If this were four or five times this size, it would be acceptable, though the wood is thin and flimsy and the roosting bars are at ground level in the coop (!). It does have a hinged roof and nest box - I give them credit for that - and 2 small double-barreled locks on each opening.

But for $500 including tax, this is disingenuous at best and at worst a rip-off. I think there have been many complaints since I bought this in early January because they have extended and modified the description. Then, the description was so brief that I had to email to request the dimensions (which of course are given in inches, not feet).

The return policy is prohibitive.

This will now be used as an isolation/hospital coop. Lesson learned.

I have now bought a 7 x 4 resin shed and am customizing it as a coop. I plan to build a 4 x 16 predator proofed roofed run from plans I bought on Etsy.

I'm SO grateful for the generosity of YouTube video sharers and folks on this site. I now know much more about square feet, ventilation, roosting bars and poop trays, feeding and watering stations, deep litter, and predator-proofing. I've invested in an Omlet automatic pop door. I'm much more confident in knowing how to build and customize my own coop.

We're getting 6 hen chicks on March 17 and have the brooder ready.

Lisa