Goat House to Chicken Coop. We doing ok?

[Ahoragi]

Hi There! We purchased a home that had pet goats roaming in a fenced area. For housing, they used an amish built goat house with concrete pad. I believe it is 11x7 with coregulated roofing panels and walls are a mixture of 2x6's, plywood, and the same roofing panels for appearance purposes. There is bubble wrap insulation on the north, south, and west walls. At first we thought it had a dirt floor but was surprised with concrete under 6" of goat droppings/straw. We gutted pretty much everything out of it and cleaned all the goat mess out, stuck three tiered roosting bars in it and added ten windows that can be closed or opened partially or fully (all but one are near the roof line). There are three sheets of rigid foam as a ceiling which I assume they put in to keep the heat out from the roof. The coop receives sun pretty much all day. We decided to put down vinyl sheeting as a floor over the concrete and threw in 3 bales of pine shavings from TSC. Everything seems good but I do not know much about coops with concrete and how it will be long term if the concrete is covered. Will this vinyl floor covering cause any issues being over a concrete pad inside a coop in a PA environment? I will note that we are solo in the middle of a huge farming area and the land does get saturated pretty good at times.

The run is 16x6 and 8 feet high with what was originally grass flooring that turned to mud after three days of rain so we added woodchips and straw on top of that. It is on the small side for our 16 chickens but they seem to be in both the run and coop throughout the day since the coop is quite large. We are currently building a aerial netted open run next to it which will be about 20x10 and this will be a supervised run for days when we are not working.

I attached some images for your viewing pleasure. Feel free to share concerns or feedback. This is our first time having chickens and we are going with the flow of things, learning and adapting, so any feedback is greatly appreciated.

If it matters, the birds are a little over 9 weeks now.

 

[21hens-incharge]

Nice work so far!

My concern would be potential mold under the linoleum. It might not happen but if it's not glued down it might be worth taking it up to check in the fall.

I would keep an eye on the temperature in the coop since it is mostly sun it gets. If it gets much hotter than outside I would add more windows.

 

[Ahoragi]

Thanks for that! So far the temps have been 1 or 2 degrees above or below outside temps. It was 75 about a week and half ago and the coop registered 78 at ceiling height but felt relatively cool down below. A benefit of the coop's location is the wind blows off the farm field and goes through the south windows and out the north side so there is always constant air movement going on to help vent/cool I would assume.

I have a few canopy cloths that we used at the old house to shade the porch that I plan to hang up along the south side of the run which helps shades the front of the coop from 2pm on.

I will keep an eye on the floor. We did not secure the vinyl as we were not sure on it long term so if by any chance it's an issue then we can just roll it up and out.

 

[BlindLemonChicken]

It looks great! I had a coop we lined with a big rubber mat and even though I was in a much drier climate (Utah) I would always find water under one corner when I cleaned it. This was most likely from a leak in one of the nesting boxes as opposed to condensation. As long as you don’t have any active leaks and your ventilation is good the vinyl should be fine. I wouldn’t use straw bedding with it because straw+poop might get slippery. I have also had concrete runs a couple times and there is really nothing wrong with that either as you found from years of goat manure. It holds up well and you can always scrape it clean.

 

[Ahoragi]

It looks great! I had a coop we lined with a big rubber mat and even though I was in a much drier climate (Utah) I would always find water under one corner when I cleaned it. This was most likely from a leak in one of the nesting boxes as opposed to condensation. As long as you don’t have any active leaks and your ventilation is good the vinyl should be fine. I wouldn’t use straw bedding with it because straw+poop might get slippery. I have also had concrete runs a couple times and there is really nothing wrong with that either as you found from years of goat manure. It holds up well and you can always scrape it clean.

Good info, thanks! No straw in the coop, just pine shavings. We had a few leaks because the 2x6 exterior walls were not sealed and we get horizontal rain here due to the winds coming off the fields. I have since caulked the entire coop to the best of my ability and everything seems to be ok but still on the lookout.

Our nesting boxes are internal and we have to manually go in to retrieve eggs so no leaking to be had there. It's one long box divided into 5 sections with a lip and nesting pad inside each one. They will have a bundle of straw in each. We read I believe on this forum to block them off till they start laying eggs so we haven't mounted it in the coop yet.

 

[rosemarythyme]

Our nesting boxes are internal and we have to manually go in to retrieve eggs so no leaking to be had there. It's one long box divided into 5 sections with a lip and nesting pad inside each one. They will have a bundle of straw in each. We read I believe on this forum to block them off till they start laying eggs so we haven't mounted it in the coop yet.

Put them in a little earlier than anticipated. Pullets nearing point of lay will begin looking at nesting spots so you want them to be able to locate them before laying begins.