Follow Along!

[Kafen]

I’m at the very beginning of my chicken journey so I thought I’d start a thread so you can follow along. And it’ll be nice to see the process after it’s all done.

Just settled on a place for it yesterday. It’s an under utilized corner on our property and for some reason my horse like to graze there (picky thing) so I thought I may as well put a coop there instead. I’ve included a picture of it as well as a sketch of what I was thinking (the squiggly lines are a couple branches that came down in a storm that I can use for roosts).

It’s all drawn to scale (1 square = 1 foot). The coop would be 8’x10’ and the run is 17’6” x 13’ (the girls would have access to run under the coop). Figured I should give myself enough room for 20 chickens (with some upgrades), even if I only want 10 or so. I hear they’re addicting... And I already have family members lining up to buy eggs off me. Around here $5/dozen is standard (that’s in CAD) and they go like hot cakes.

The run would be uncovered, so I also wanted the coop + the underside to offer some space if they had to stay in there for a bit. Especially if it gets covered in a couple feet of snow next winter too. A very good possibility around here. I figure if I make the coop secure enough then I don’t have to worry so much about the run. Besides, I’d like to free range them around in the yard and I can’t cover all of that. And if I’m honest, the budget is pretty much next to nothing. Which is why it’ll be a 4’ chain link fence for the run, since it’s just sitting in our yard not being used! That’s kind of how we’re going to build it. And pallets.

In an ideal world it’d be a nice big covered run surrounded by hardware cloth. But a lot of things would happen in an ideal world and I’m coming to realize that if you wait around for it, you’ll just be waiting around forever.

Anyway, I was going to go dig posts for it today, but we woke up to all this snow?! Unacceptable. Oh well, I’ll just stay in an research more about chickens.

Oh and the horse’s name is Jarpur. You’ll probably being seeing him a lot.

 

[aart]

Gotta love a scaled sketch, Kudos!
(if you're an old drafter like me)
Welcome to BYC!
Thanks for adding your location!

Is your chosen site easy to get to thru 2' of snow?
Is the drainage good there?
Can you get power there for heated waterer in winter?

With 20 birds in a 10x10 coop in your climate, I'd have some covered and secure run space.
Chicken Cabin Fever is real and it can be Ugly.
I'd rethink the branches as roosts too.
Think about poop boards:


Here some tips on heights:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/coop-stack-up-how-high-stuff-works-well.73427/

 

[Kafen]

Gotta love a scaled sketch, Kudos!
(if you're an old drafter like me)
Welcome to BYC!
Thanks for adding your location!

Is your chosen site easy to get to thru 2' of snow?
Is the drainage good there?
Can you get power there for heated waterer in winter?

With 20 birds in a 10x10 coop in your climate, I'd have some covered and secure run space.
Chicken Cabin Fever is real and it can be Ugly.
I'd rethink the branches as roosts too.
Think about poop boards:


Here some tips on heights:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/coop-stack-up-how-high-stuff-works-well.73427/

Thanks for the tips! It’s mostly the coop size that’s for max 20 (eventually), I wouldn’t put more than 10 in there with the current run. Just want to build the coop so I won’t have to add onto it. The run is more flexible for the future. Thanks for the advice on the branch too! I was mostly thinking of it since we had it anyway, but it would much easier if it was just a straight run. I’ll have to figure how to get poop boards in.

We have sandy soil, so drainage shouldn’t be an issue. I was going to let the birds take care of the grass before adding anything in there. The site will be accessible all year, have to go further for the horse and we’re set up for heated water (also need that for the horse). It’s a bit more tucked out of the way for the wind too and gets more shade than the other spot I was thinking of. We get some wicked northern winds coming in, something I have to factor in!

 

[Kafen]

The snow is gone now and it’s a balmy 4C out there! Not sure what that is in Fahrenheit, give me a second.... 40F! So really quite nice for some yard work. My husband popped out last night after the baby went to sleep and picked up some amazing windows that I found on Marketplace. Only $30 for both! (That’s CAD, I won’t bother with an exchange rate on this one).



They’re much bigger than I was picturing too, so I’m going to rearrange the coop layout to accommodate them. They’ll be on the southern side so the coop can warm up with the winter sun and it’ll be nice and bright for cleaning.


He also picked up a couple more pallets to add to our collection, all heat treated. I’m picturing a whitewashed or grey stained wood, but we’ll see what happens.


So my pile of chicken coop stuff is growing, just waiting for assembly. Gotta get on it since I’m aiming to get the chicks at the end of April. There’s a picture of the chainlink fencing we have as well and the fierce (ha!) guard dog named Snuffleupagus (don’t mind the seasonal baldness on his flank, has the boxer blood to thank for that!). Off I go to dig post holes now, we’ll see if the ground is soft enough!

 

[Kafen]

I haven’t posted in so long, but here’s an update on our coop adventure! We went with conventional framing due to simplicity and strength. The pallets would’ve been a nightmare and so much more work.

To start, there are 6 posts with concrete, with 2x6 joists framed under OSB. Here we have it framed. We ended up going back and redoing the roof with a stronger ridge beam and better overhangs.

Then we added the OSB to the inside, leaving the far gable open for ventilation. It’ll be covered with 1/2” hardware cloth. We also have the windows in. They’re facing south, which will be so great for heating up the coop in the winter. I weighed that against protection from the sun, but we’re in Canada and I didn’t want them facing the awful northern winds. You can stand up inside, which was one of my main goals!

Here’s an outside view. There’s one coat of paint there now. I wanted the coop raised so they would have protection from the elements since I won’t be able to cover the whole run. And I also wanted to be able to fit under since I know fishing a chicken out from there in an inevitability.

Roof on and three coats of paint later. The stairs are also in place. Although I think I’m going to be redoing them before winter. They weren’t made for this project anyway, but from an old platform we tore out.

The door isn’t completed yet, but almost! I’ve decided I’m going to paint it a mint green. The siding will be whitewashed lap wood so I think it’ll look pretty stellar. We just wanted to get it up so we could get the chickens out of their brooder. It was really past time.

Survived their first night! The auto feeders are great, although I think I’ll need to put a lip at the bottom. The horizontal nipple water bucket is awesome too.

Can you tell there’s 21 chickens there? They were not expecting me to come through that door! I frightened the poor things rather bad. 4 will be picked up by my sister next week, and I was expecting more cockerels, but we’ll see. I may actually end up with more pullets! What a strange problem to have.

Still have to get the siding on, the run fenced, bird netting up. So lots more, but still close! But I want to keep them in there for a week anyway.

That’s all for now!