Dog lot for coop/run questions

[Toothless Willie]

Sorry, GeorgiaGail is out at a wholesale nursery this morning so I can dig more holes in the yard.

Yes, the hatch at the rear of the coop is 3'X3' wide and positioned dead center of the coop. This allows us to service pretty much the entire coop from the doorway. Further there is no "lip" on this door and you can sweep anything right out into the garden cart which fits just under the door edge. Roosts, ladders, and poop boards all slide out for cleaning, and the lid of the nest boxes are hinged on the outside for easy access.

 

[Jeffross1968]

It's really a beautiful job willie. Can you estimate the cost of the whole thing? How many chickens, considering day time free ranging, do you feel can comfortably exist in there, even if they had to be left alone for 4 or 5 days on very rare occasions?

 

[bryan99705]

perchie.girl :

Quote:
Im doing more than just a run I am doing a whole poultry house out of Dog kennel panels. I live in a very dry hot climate so All I need to do is put in wind break for two sides and cover the top with a good tarp. The Poultry house will be 24 x 24 feet with seven partitions and a hall way to access all the nests and feed and water.

This is what I want it to look like:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/uploads/72852_big_coop_2.jpg
This is what it looks like now:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/uploads/72852_goat-chicken_shed_materials.jpg

I have over 300 linear feet of kennel panels to contain my goats.

LOL believe it or not it isn't working so I am going to have to build Goat proof fence else where...LOL.

edited to add:
Just remember you will still have to line with chicken wire or hardware cloth to keep wild things from pulling the chickens through the chain link. And believe me they can get a whole chicken through it.

Go electric fence on the goats. Mine touched it in a few spots but never challenged it​

 

[perchie.girl]

Quote:
Go electric fence on the goats. Mine touched it in a few spots but never challenged it

Yeah Have it planned. I am moving them to the horse corral to share with my horse. its 100 x 100 and has the option of goat space to be expanded out into the rocks (goat Heaven) The corral is pipe and i am lining it with no climb wire and reinforcing the gates and bottom with Hot wire. Horse is used to hot wire no big deal to her. They do love to rub and wear out wire along the base of fences.

So that will leave my whole back yard free for Chicken/Guinea Heaven, 24 x 24 Coop/house and about 150 x 100 for run space. I am going to do aviary netting eventually making the whole back yard a freezone from predators. We have mountain lion, bobcat, coyote, hawk, owl, and feral dogs. The house is going to be sheathed in Aviary wire 10 gauge panels with 1/2 x 3 inch spacing. The only things that can go through that are Edible.... LOL.

 

[Toothless Willie]

A couple of tough questions. We had a good many of the materials on hand, and pay retail for very little when we do purchase supplies. I think one could build this coop and run for under a thousand dollars, give or take a couple of hundred. There are some extras we included which could be cut out without damaging the overall scope of the project. Not everyone wants or needs to bury 4X4 posts 16 - 18" deep in concrete, nor run a concrete skirt with hardware cloth embedded into the ground around the entire coop.

Plywood for the floor and walls is much heavier than required and there is enough hardware cloth and fencing wire on this thing to cage King Kong.

We have also since found other ways to economize some of these things, such as the gray 3/4 electrical conduit rather than standard PVC. Given the perimeter protection, we used chicken wire for the floor of the run, etc. Little things but they add up.

We presently have 12 chickens living comfortably at night in the coop. There are 4 - 12"X 14" exterior nest boxes. The roosts inside are being under utilized now that the chickens decided they prefer the ceiling joists as a roost. I do not think I would want more, and in fact hope to cull,(find some poor smuck to take) the just maturing roosters back to 8-10 birds in the near future.

Our chickens cannot free range, but my understanding is free ranging would not effect living conditions in the coop anyway. The gang of twelve is restricted to the run at all times. We lock them up in the coop at night to be on the safe side. We have a homemade 3" PVC feeder which needs to be checked at least once a day. This is serviced from outside the run and can be seen in one of Gail's pictures. If I knew we were going to be away for an extended time I would suppliment that with a large poultry feeder.

For water we have a 5 gal. bucket with watter nipples, and they have a foot bath as well. Inside the coop we keep a small waterer and chicken feeder as well. All in all there are very few things I would change in this design. We are just starting our third coop. I imagine GeorgiaGail will post pictures from that build as well.

 

[perchie.girl]

Another source for free materials is Garage doors from companies that replace wood garage doors with steel. Those garage doors are stout and made of plywood. a Two car garage door is eight by sixteen. Mostly half inch plywood over two by twos. Most places will give them to you or will charge a nominal fee for them.

I had one guy give me five single car garage doors (horse shelter goat shelter chicken coop). And they were already painted. I use them as is no cutting or disassembly.