first coop...love it!

[cindy parker]

 

[petalumapaul]

Wow. That's really nice!

 

[acates]

Love it. This is very similar to the one we are building (which is our first)! Hopefully ours turns out this nice!

 

[cindy parker]

I look forward to seeing pics of yours. I already know a couple of things I would do different if I could, but I do love it

 

[acates]

How many chickens does yours hold? I really have to focus on preditor protection. I live in the middle of the woods that border up with a national forest. This is my first attempt on raising chickens. but mine will be a similar setup.

 

[cindy parker]

I'm not sure how many it will hold, but we have 4 in there now and will be adding two more when they get a little bigger. It is 5 feet wide and 12 feet long with the run being the entire 5x12 area since the coop is built above it. I too live in the woods and we have to deal with raccoons, fox, opossum, armadillo, coyote, etc. We made it what I HOPE to be predator proof. so far no issues. I have welded wire under the entire pen attached to the bottom wall which actually sits on patio blocks. We used hardware cloth for everything else and I close the chicks up in the coop at night. The only thing I worry about getting to the are snakes...they can squeeze through the smallest spaces. I DO have 5 outdoor cats though who have kept us snake and mice free for 3 years now though. I hope they will continue. I'm using shavings inside the coop and keeping the food outside under the coop itself using a hanging feeder to help keep so much food from being wasted on the ground.I keep the area cleaned up for the most part so hopefully no mice or snakes will want to get to it I have lots of pics of the construction process from step 1 til the end if you would like to see them.

 

[acates]

That would be cool to see. I love reading about this stuff and its nice to have a website like this so you can see others ideas. You may have done something that I haven't even thought of. I don't know how many coop ideas I have looked at and still want to see more.

 

[cindy parker]

Ok....here are a few of the pics

 

[cindy parker]

I started with patio blocks and got them perfectly level as seen in the picture above. They went all the way around the enclosure. Then we built the frame and set it on the blocks

 

[cindy parker]

When we had the frame finished, we built the coop part and nesting boxes