*FINISHED, with pics!* What would you do with a 15' by 10' shed/room?

CountryFried

Songster
9 Years
Mar 6, 2010
280
390
221
SE AL
On the back of my barn/workshop, I have an enclosed 15' by 10' room, roughly 9' ceiling. 3 sides are plywood walls, covered in aluminum/tin on the outside, one side is connected to the inside of my workshop. There's a door on the workshop wall, and a small door (narrow, normal height) on one of the end walls. No windows, cement floor. Can cut windows into the 3 exterior walls.

Hubby says I can convert it to a chicken coop, right now we have our "high value" power tools in there. The exterior door opens into a covered area with a dirt floor. He wants to turn that area (it's probably 50' or so long by 20' wide, all covered, leading toward my wooded area) into my barn/stable for the chickies, pigs, goats, or maybe mini cows. Thoughts? Suggestions? I'll try to remember to go take pics tomorrow. I'd like to do it soon, as I have 2 week old standard chick in the brooder, and I just bought 5 Silkie hens from a neighbor today, they're in my tractor
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What would you do to make this area home for chickens? I'm leaning toward DLM, but haven't decided, I need to find out if I can get DE locally. How much ventilation (sq ft) do I need to for a 150 sq ft coop? We're in SE Alabama, mild winters, HOT summers. I doubt I can put vent fans in the roof, I'm not sure I trust it to support anyone's weight to install them. I can't cut into one long wall, as it leads into the workshop.

Help me make my dream coop! I don't have access to much stuff to recycle, but I would like to keep costs down. I figure with already having the exterior done, it shouldn't cost too, too much to make it ready for chickies.

Post 3 has the before pics! A huge thank you to Pat for her all help in PMs, we decided to just use the outside area for chickens and the room for storing feed and such. Heading out of state for a day tomorrow, so probably won't get the nest boxes built until after Thanksgiving, and will build some roosts then, as well.

Here is after, ugly, but awesome! Will be using nipple waterers as soon as they arrive
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The amount of ventilation you need depends on how many birds you'll have. They say you need about 1 sq ft of ventilation per bird. 150 sq ft would be good for something like 50-75 standard birds so I would cut enough openings to make around 60 sq ft. You can screen the openings and then use the panels you removed as flaps to cover the openings, adding or removing them as you need for your bird population.

Cut in a pop door or two, add some perches - tree branches should do, and you should be ready to go. If you get layers, you can make nest boxes out of old cabinets, milk crates, stuff like that. We have a Restore and ReUse center nearby where we get a lot of building material for cheap. Maybe call some home remodelers to see what they do with cabinets that they tear out of remodels - you might be able to get something that way.
 
I think the room actually was a coop at some point in the past. We went out and took pics of it:

Front of the building
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Inside the building, door into coop. That's a mirror beside the door, not a window
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View into coop from inside door, straight ahead
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View from inside door, to the right, the end wall is metal only, guessing I'll need to insulate?
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Right end wall, from the inside...Notice the pop door?
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Right end, see the window cut into the plywood? It's covered in chicken wire.
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Outside, I see TWO pop door cutouts here
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If you look closely at the ground, you can see the two cut-outs in the metal
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Back of coop room
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Run area
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The narrow door into the coop room (door will be replaced)
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First, I would have a heart attack from the excitement at having such a nice, large building to make into a coop.

Then I would measure everything and draw a sketch of the existing floor plan, kinda sorta to scale.

Then I would start checking FreeCycle and CraigsList posts for anything I could scrounge. And keep my eyes peeled for other stuff I can pick up anywhere (that's not nailed down).

Then I would excitedly plan the nest box row I saw in another coop that I just WANT to make (but for which I don't have the room in my small coops).
(Sorry for posting this without acknowledgement, but I forgot where on BYC I found it - I saved the photo so I would know how to do this "someday.")
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(If it's yours and you want me to take it down, let me know!)

Then I would make sure I have lots of hydrogen peroxide, neosporin, and band-aids on hand.

So on and so forth....

WAHOO!!! What a coop you can build!!!
 
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I'm about 20 miles from Dothan. I made the kimchi
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(I don't eat it, though)

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ROFL! We also have an empty 2bd/2ba mobile home on our property that's just sitting there being used at storage right now. It's on my project list to fix up and rent out soon.
 
I live near Auburn..
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I love KimChi... Nice space you have there, I am kinda in the same boat, I have a space and trying to figure out what I can do with it to make it as space effective as possible.

Candace
 
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My best friend's daughter goes to Auburn
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Here's the recipe I used for the kimchi, hubby said it was good: http://drbenkim.com/how-make-kim-chi.htm

Hubby
is slowly catching on to my critters, he loves the chicks, didn't scream when I got a phone call Monday and ran out the door to get 4 month old Silkies. When I came back and said, ummm, honey, the tractor I built isn't big enough for those babies in the brooder and the 5 chickens I just bought....he said I could have the room.

Poor guy went on a Boy Scout camping trip with our sons to Blue Springs this weekend and came home to find 3 pigs in our dog's fenced in area of the yard
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After I posted the pigs on Facebook, my aunt sent me a message telling me she just bought mini cattle...so that's all he's heard about since then. I promised no more species until Spring, but then I took my boys to a processing place to inquire about their prices to do my pigs, and they had a baby goat. Our 11 year old fell in love, so I suspect we may have goats sooner than I think.
 

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