- Jul 25, 2009
- 10
- 0
- 22
I got a lot from reading through the posts of other members' coop construction so I thought that I would do the same. The coop & run was made to house 5 chickens with the potential for adding a couple more if we choose to do so. We live in suburbia in a coastal town of in the southern part of Queensland Australia where the climate is quite pleasant and not much in the way of extremes of temperature. In saying that we did have a few weeks of single figure temps (celcius) at night over the winter. Because of the lack of extremes I chose to build an open coop so that ventilation was assured and giving the added bonus of being able to see the chickens better. The coop came in way over budget & took twice as long to build as I expected though as I have no carpentry background and I was doing it by myself this was not surprising.
I made the base from 2 x 1.2m (6.5x4') ply wood and treated pine bearers with all given a coat of oil based undercoat. The legs (100mm / 5" round treated pine) were then bolted on. The ground here is reclaimed swamp with a lot of clay and some soil & sand in between. As such I took the easy option for digging holes for the posts and did the same for the vege garden in the background. The measurements for the posts were triple checked as when I installed the play-fort I managed to stuff up the placement on a few of them causing a fair bit of crowbar work to occur.
The base was set into the holes (thankfully no further digging required) and leveled up. As we are renting the posts were not concreted in. In theory the coop can be pulled into panels for when we eventually move to our own place. Framing was undertaken with a fair amount of standing back and thinking about what I wanted & how on earth I could achieve it.
I edged around the bottom of the coop & run with treated pine sleepers buried to a depth of 10-15cm (4-6") as an endeavour to keep out any dogs or other creatures that may get into the yard). The roof is colourbond roofing of the same colour of our old house in Brisbane. Eventually the skeleton was in place, painted and ready for wire & walls.
The sides and rear of the coop were covered with 4.5mm compressed concrete sheeting with door and nesting box hatch made out of plywood. I did not put a base piece of framing across the bottom of the door opening to facilitate ease of sweeping out the coop. The front of the coop and the walls of the run were covered with 12mm (0.5") aviary mesh to a height of 1.8m (6'). I am wondering if what we in Australia know as 'aviary mesh' (welded wire mesh) is what those of you in America call Hardware cloth (no idea what this is)? Finally the coop was habitable and ready to take our ladies.
As mentioned earlier the coop itself is 2m x 1.2m and the run is 3.8m x 2.1m. The ramp into the coop is hinged so that it can be lifted and pad bolted into place to secure the ladies in at night. the coop & run is still not finished but it is at an adequate stage of completion, for the short term at least. I still have to make the nest boxes as I am currently using a plastic crate on it's side and the two eggs that we have got have not been laid in there. I also need to paint all the ply wood & the exterior of the sheeting, create an opening between the vege garden and the run, cover the top with aviary mesh and hang the food & water from the central beam. There are also likely a number of other things that will need to be undertaken but I have not yet thought of them, feel free to point them out or offer suggestions on improvements/alternatives.
I made the roost as a ladder type but as yet the chickens have not been using it though tonight is only their 4th night in. They have instead been roosting on the floor positioning themselves behind the raised ramp. Can anyone tell me if hens need to be taught to go onto the roost or is there another reason why they do not go up onto it? Do I need to install something to drop down in front of the area where the roosts are?
We picked up our 5 ladies (rhode island reds I think) about 30 minutes after reaching the point of habitability. We all enjoyed listening to the clucks of the chickens as we drove home and potentially it was the first time my girls have been quiet in the car without being asleep. Thanks to BYC I was able to clip their wings as I took each chicken out of the carriers.
Success! The next afternoon we found our first egg. It was rather small but it was definitely an egg and there was another one today. Only another 3400 and the coop will have paid for itself, kind of.
Given this is my first foray into coop design & building I would love feedback. Good & bad, it is all helpful to myself and others like me.
Cheers & thanks for reading.
I made the base from 2 x 1.2m (6.5x4') ply wood and treated pine bearers with all given a coat of oil based undercoat. The legs (100mm / 5" round treated pine) were then bolted on. The ground here is reclaimed swamp with a lot of clay and some soil & sand in between. As such I took the easy option for digging holes for the posts and did the same for the vege garden in the background. The measurements for the posts were triple checked as when I installed the play-fort I managed to stuff up the placement on a few of them causing a fair bit of crowbar work to occur.
The base was set into the holes (thankfully no further digging required) and leveled up. As we are renting the posts were not concreted in. In theory the coop can be pulled into panels for when we eventually move to our own place. Framing was undertaken with a fair amount of standing back and thinking about what I wanted & how on earth I could achieve it.
I edged around the bottom of the coop & run with treated pine sleepers buried to a depth of 10-15cm (4-6") as an endeavour to keep out any dogs or other creatures that may get into the yard). The roof is colourbond roofing of the same colour of our old house in Brisbane. Eventually the skeleton was in place, painted and ready for wire & walls.
The sides and rear of the coop were covered with 4.5mm compressed concrete sheeting with door and nesting box hatch made out of plywood. I did not put a base piece of framing across the bottom of the door opening to facilitate ease of sweeping out the coop. The front of the coop and the walls of the run were covered with 12mm (0.5") aviary mesh to a height of 1.8m (6'). I am wondering if what we in Australia know as 'aviary mesh' (welded wire mesh) is what those of you in America call Hardware cloth (no idea what this is)? Finally the coop was habitable and ready to take our ladies.
As mentioned earlier the coop itself is 2m x 1.2m and the run is 3.8m x 2.1m. The ramp into the coop is hinged so that it can be lifted and pad bolted into place to secure the ladies in at night. the coop & run is still not finished but it is at an adequate stage of completion, for the short term at least. I still have to make the nest boxes as I am currently using a plastic crate on it's side and the two eggs that we have got have not been laid in there. I also need to paint all the ply wood & the exterior of the sheeting, create an opening between the vege garden and the run, cover the top with aviary mesh and hang the food & water from the central beam. There are also likely a number of other things that will need to be undertaken but I have not yet thought of them, feel free to point them out or offer suggestions on improvements/alternatives.
I made the roost as a ladder type but as yet the chickens have not been using it though tonight is only their 4th night in. They have instead been roosting on the floor positioning themselves behind the raised ramp. Can anyone tell me if hens need to be taught to go onto the roost or is there another reason why they do not go up onto it? Do I need to install something to drop down in front of the area where the roosts are?
We picked up our 5 ladies (rhode island reds I think) about 30 minutes after reaching the point of habitability. We all enjoyed listening to the clucks of the chickens as we drove home and potentially it was the first time my girls have been quiet in the car without being asleep. Thanks to BYC I was able to clip their wings as I took each chicken out of the carriers.
Success! The next afternoon we found our first egg. It was rather small but it was definitely an egg and there was another one today. Only another 3400 and the coop will have paid for itself, kind of.
Given this is my first foray into coop design & building I would love feedback. Good & bad, it is all helpful to myself and others like me.
Cheers & thanks for reading.
