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

[JacinLarkwell]

I have 4, 3 sentinel and 1 early grey model. They definitely don't hold as many grown chickens as they claim, but fir grow outs, processing pens and small groups, they do just fine. I also leave the coop doors open to increase rhe ventilation a bit and to give them more room if they need it

 

[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

 

[KelseyBoxer]

I bought a coop like the one @ljadwin posted above. It was tiny and really cheaply made. The egg box hanging off the back was the first to fail. You could lift it and it would move a few inches. The wood seemed to be falling apart. If a LF hen sat in the box she would be in great danger of falling. It lasted less than 5 years.

 

[Jenni Hen]

My first prefab coops don't count for review because I'd decided they would be a temporary experiment until I'd either found that I didn't really want to keep chickens, or had a lovely hen house built by my partner
The little coops have worked like 3 bedrooms within an enclosed run and were just about ok until we got red mite! At that point, some young pullets were due to arrive shortly, and (2 years later) the promised henhouse wasn't even on the horizon. Eeek.

The BIG pro for a prefab coop - a few clicks and the thing actually arrives!! Even I could assemble it.
I got two Eglus for 8 bantam-sized birds. I put them up on new bricks because I thought that the price of a frame was silly. However I found that the bricks got in the way too much so I grudgingly paid the price of the frame, which proved to be much more sturdy and stable than piles of bricks.

With the Eglu go-up, I found that:

• the frame is too high for hopping up comfortably
• they couldn't land in the pop-hole doorway: there's nowhere to land. The threshold slopes outwards, is slippery plastic and is too wide for bantam feet to grasp.
• they were scared to jump down in the morning
• the nest box is next to the door. It's a smooth plastic hollow and they kept slipping into it.
• the roosting bars are narrow but ok for banties
• (good thing!) there are lots of roosting bars; all on a level, so they can snuggle up, vie for the best place etc - and all without pushing anyone off! They settled much more quickly with little squabbling and I stopped worrying about who would get hurt falling off the perch.
• (bad thing) there are lots of roosting bars; of open rectangular cross-section and hollow, so each bar has 6 surfaces to get coated with the poo that's supposed to drop through. All the surfaces need scrubbing each week.
• the coop stinks in the morning if you don't put litter in the poop tray
• losing access to their coops meant they lost that 'first-floor' area within the run.
• (good) it seems very waterproof
• (good) it seems predator-proof
• (not sure) it soon gets warm when they're in but I'm not sure there's enough ventilation
• there's no means of adjusting ventilation
• the ladder which comes with the frame is very sturdy and well-made. A bit steep for reaching the Eglu on its frame, but brilliant in other situations.

Solutions to make it work:

• In summer, I put the coop back-to-front and removed the back of the coop so they had enough space for landing and a level edge on which to land.
  I supervised them getting down in the morning and helped those who weren't confident.
• When winter arrived, I replaced the back of the coop. Having reinstated one of the old coops, I put the pophole of this coop opposite the Eglu doorway. I place a ramp across from the Eglu to the old coop to make a bridge. They file across the bridge down to their old coop, then hop out or use the Eglu ladder.
• I fill the poop tray with shredded paper and hay and put plenty of hay on top of the roosting bars. Then I can pick up the hay and shake the poo off it each morning and it saves a lot of scrubbing of roosting bars. They can't reach under the bars, and the hay is on top of the paper, so it isn't a hazard.
• Putting plenty of hay in the 'nest box' hollow helps to stop them sliding into it.
  
  

To quote, 'The Eglu Go UP mobile chicken house is suitable for up to 4 medium sized chickens or 2-3 larger breeds such as Buff Orpingtons or Cochins'

 

[Unswydd]

I don't have a picture but i bought a prefab from Tractor Supply and it got sold almost immediately. It was soft wood and not very sturdy, it was very small and inconvenient.
I made my own coop and used a Dog Kennel for the frame. It turned out pretty good. Here is a picture of it.

 

[BDutch]

View attachment 3417761
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.

I have a prefab coop similar to yours for 12 years now. First it was a rabbit coop.
After they died I bought tiny Dutch bantams chicks to fit in it.
Second year with chickens we had chicks. The coop has been extended, with more roosting space and a 3x3 meter run. The coop got a new roof. More ventilation, higher roosts. auto pop door.
The prefab is used mainly for the nest boxes. And one chicken prefers to sleep in it. She hates the quarrelling when the chickens fight for the best roosting spot.

 

[rosemarythyme]

I forgot the exact name of the coop I bought (and the specific coop is no longer manufactured), manufacturer is Roost & Root in TX. Unfortunately I never really took photos of it while it was in use, so this one from behind is about as good as it gets:

Pros:
- 16 sq ft of floor space* which is good for the 2-3 hens it was advertised to hold.
- Coop had ventilation all over it on all sides, with storm panels that slot in for winter. I found it to be sufficient ventilation for winter and summer use in my moderate climate.
- American made solid cedar, not thin fir.
- Very good customer service, I dropped and broke a piece and they immediately sent me a replacement piece at no charge.

*The 16 sq ft of floor space required a "run add on" that was made for this specific coop, otherwise it would've been about 9 sq ft, but I can only review it the way I had it set up.

Cons:
- Not cheap.
- Assembly took a lot longer than we thought it would (to be honest it would've gone faster if I did it, instead of hubby!)
- Because I ended up with 4 hens (vs 3) the roost was too short, so I did have to make the following modifications: removed existing nest box, extend new roost into what was the nesting space, then added a new nest box (a dog house) and a short pass-thru externally in the rear.

What happened to it:
- The top portion of the coop became my brooder. Also doubles as a rain shelter as it sits in the run year round.

- The "run add on" is now a weather protected feed area (on left, brooder is on right).

- One short wall got screwed to the current coop wall to hang oyster shell and grit dispenser cups off of.
- The remaining long wall + front wall is now a compost sifter and we use the shelf on the front wall to put eggs on, gloves on, etc. when swapping in and out of our chicken run boots.
- The old roost (which I kept!) got turned into a chick practice roost.

- Tossed the rest, but that's about 90% recycled and reused.

 

[The Birb King]

I had one a few years ago. It worked well at first for a few bantams, but totally just fell apart those things are made of cheap wood and only last a few years.

 

[ILoveDaffy]

In my opinion prefab is nearly always a joke. Not great materials, very small, not sturdy, and cumbersome to deal with. My experience with prefab has not been good. Way too flimsy, the amount of birds it will hold is often exaggerated, etc. I'd always rather build than buy prefab. I don't trust T.S.C prefab coops, or Ama.zon. Just looking at them you can tell they're cheaply made, but others look pretty good. Rita Marie's look nice. Eglu seems okay too. I just like to know that I've taken every step to make sure my birds are comfy and safe.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Still use this coop, it's been fixed mostly since this happened, but it could have ended far, far worse than it did