Finally! Coop done.

[sune42]

I finally got the coop done. Much love to my neighbor and father in law. I would have been very lost without them. I am working on the run now and still have to put the shingles on the roof. Any suggestions on how to do that? I haven't googled it yet, but I will be.
To make it easier, here is my facebook album of my chickens.
Chickens and coop!


-Amanda

 

[Delphinium]

It looks great! I like the color.

I noticed bags of sand in one picture and your caption said it was the wrong kind. What kind did you buy?

 

[CoyoteMagic]

Nice coop. Skip the digging. You can lay out an "apron" or "skirt" around the bottom of the run to keep critters out. Sooooooooooooooo much easier than digging. Attach to the bottom of your coop at a 90* angle--L___ wire will be like this. I attached mine with hog rings. I then just cover it with mulch and plant flowers in it. Nothing has gotten into my runs yet.

 

[ScaredOfShadows]

That sand is Home Depot/Lowes brand "play sand" Its fine to use in the run for chickens, you may want to add some crushed gravel/stone to give it some added drainability and all, but shoot I've used that stuff before, and I just bought 6 bags of it to put in my mini-coop's run until I can find wheels to make the mini coop into a tractor like its supposed to be.

Oh P.S. (edit) I agree with Coyote - do an apron, dog you a couple inches of dirt (2-3 inches or a single shovel scoop down) and pile your dirt off, put an apron down 18-24" from the bottom edge of coop and then replace the old dirt on top. you can pat it down you cant see it, or add more dirt on top, put a border around it and plant flowers/plants and have yourself a landscaped coop. I personally like the apron much better its easier and prettier, most coops that people do the dug down wire, it looks uneven and the holes where they dug, will sink back down alot making it pockmarked.

 

[sune42]

Thanks for the feedback. I had read that the play sand compacts too much, so I was going to trade it in for paver sand. Glad that you said that about the apron, because I have way too many tree roots in my yard and I couldn't get very deep. What are hog rings?
I have a trench dug most of the way around so I am burying part of the frame and will put the apron off of that. Plenty of dirt to cover everything back up with. I have to get about 4 more 2x4s because I didn't get enough. *sigh* darn expensive chickens. lol All told I have spend around $500 on the coop and run.

 

[blueberrychickens]

Nice coop! Cute chickens too!! BTW...my neighbor is Amanda Lewis too! lol

 

[Schultz]

Quote:
We have used play sand in our run for about a year now and it has really worked well! I had to dig out the first 8 inches of soil because the previous owners of our property seemed to have a glass breaking festival in the part of the property that I put the chicken run in. (go figure, just my luck) There was grass there when I made the run so i didn't realize at the time that all of that glass was in the soil. I havent had any problem so far with the sand packing down but our run has a roof on it so it stays pretty dry for the most part. It is however very easy to clean with just a lawn rake!