Floor

[WeeOnesChicks]

One wall to finish in our coop Now looking for input on the floor in the coop my husband is laying a wood floor and insulating it. I will be using sand in the coop and wanted to know what everyone's thoughts are laminate it than add sand on top or if It would be ok to just lay sand over the plywood? Also is it so that perches should be higher than the neating box and how high do you put the first one or is any height fine

 

[JackE]

No need to bother with any insulation. In a chicken coop, it is best to be able to see the entire coop, inside and out. With insulation, you will have to have interior walls, and with an insulated floor, you will need a double floor to keep the chickens from shredding the unnecessary insulation. When you double up, walls and floors in a coop. You will have provided perfect hidden places for insect pests, and possibly rodent pests, to set up housekeeping of their own, right next to a never ending food buffet. Chickens already have perfect insulation, and don't need any help from us.
If you want the best coop wood floor protection, go with Blackjack #57 from Lowes. You can do a search here, and see other people's opinions on it. It's good stuff.
And yes, put your roosts higher than the nestboxes. The roosts in my coop are only a foot higher than the boxes at 3 ft, but it works well, nobody roosts in the boxes.

 

[WeeOnesChicks]

I know everyone has their own opinion on how to do things and with being a newbie we have read so much that we thought it would be a great idea to insulate because of the info we read on chickens and drafts. But I totally understand what you are talking about with open buffet. So would you recommend just leaving the coop on the dirt and then adding sand to it my concern is winter

 

[JackE]

There are a lot of coops built on the ground with just a dirt floor. It's been done that way for a looooooong time. But, and it's just my opinion, unless you are building some massive coop for a hundred birds or so, a raised coop with a wood floor is the way to go. Unlike a coop built on the ground, you don't have to mess with building a serious foundation. My coop is 8X16', and it is sitting on top of 6 sets of concrete blocks, leveled into the ground. I didn't have to mess around with mixing concrete, and making a foundation. If some of the blocks start settling into the ground, I'll just jack up, and shim to re-level. Also, with a raised coop, The birds have a nice shady place to hang out, on sunny days. With a raised coop, if it snows, I can still easily get into the coop without having to clear any doorways. If you build a raised coop, just make sure you raise it high enough, so you can easily see whats going on under there. As I said before, you don't want to provide any hidden spaces for pests.

I don't know where you live, but hot summer days are more of a threat to chickens, than winter cold. I get temps here, in the winter, down into the single digits, not including any "Windchill". The front of my unheated and uninsulated coop is wide open, covered only with hardware cloth, and the chickens are totally fine with it.