Have the chickens, now I need a coop. Please help!!!

[FunClucks]

Super interesting, thank you!

 

[FunClucks]

I started out with 6 chicks. I found this plan online so I'm going to share it with you. My husband made that same chicken coop and the chicken run for me.

I now hav3e 22 chickens and my husband converted a medium size shed for the additonal chickens. He also installed more nesting boxes, roosts for all of them. They are very secure from outside skunks, and hawks.

So far so good. This may work for you if not you'll have to get something that will work for you.

Take care,
Christy

Thank you!

 

[lifein1840]

I have 8 baby chicks, maybe a week or two old (got them from Rural King right after birth). I had a pre-fab coop with run picked out, and was planning on adding another big run to give me 80 ft of ground space, but reading on here realized that there wouldn't be enough space in the coop area for 8 chickens to roost. I am needing suggestions on what kind of coop to build/modify/cobble together. I'm a totally new chicken owner, and sort of good with building things, but it usually takes much more time than I have available while managing small children, hence the attempt to purchase a pre-fab coop. The rejected coop: https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/precision-xl-superior-construction-annex-coop-37077d

Would you recommend I try to convert a metal shed? Maybe this one?

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Arrow-N...yQqEnNl8mMhL1QkcTcxoCL_0QAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

I am in north Alabama, where it is super humid almost all year, maybe we get a few low humidity months in the spring and fall, land of tornadoes, maybe 3 days of snow a year, but usually a month or two of below freezing temperatures. We barely have enough cold time to grow apples. I have about 1/2 acre semi-wooded fenced back yard (chain link), with a stream about 20 feet outside my fence line and vertically down 6 ft. Almost all the trees are 40-50 yr old sweet gum, with one black walnut right next to where I plan to put the coop and run. Issues with poison ivy, issues with ticks and fleas, red hawks, coyotes, foxes, raccoons, neighborhood cats, opossum, water snakes (water moccasin, cottonmounth, rattlers), king snakes, squirrels, song birds, mosquitoes. The proposed coop area gets moderate to heavy shade most of the year (when the leaves are on the trees), and on the worst months the yard is very hot and humid, and the air doesn't move much. We have mainly weeds, violets, and rye grass in the yard at the moment, due to the shade, and lots of tree roots. Heavy clay soil that dries like concrete, and some type of sad grass that looks sorta like Bermuda. Termites are bad here, and there's lots of rotting wood on the other side of my fence and stumps on my property.

For the coop I'm worried about ventilation, poop smell, and keeping the birds safe from predators, as well as having enough space for them and for me to clean it out. There will probably be a number of days they have to stay in their coop instead of their run, for various reasons (weather, etc), and I expect I won't be around during the day most days to check on them when I let them out - they'll get a morning and an evening check. I plan to possibly free range them with supervision, but may not if the run is large enough due to the constant presence of hawks.

The area I have to build the coop and run in is 24' x 48', but I I'd like to enclose 80-100 square feet, and locate a number of pallet hot compost piles nearby. I was hoping to do the deep bedding method, but not sure how successful that would be at keeping smell down in humid alabama.

For the run, should I attempt to build something with 2"x4" and 1/2" hardware cloth, or purchase one of these the chicken runs on Amazon, etc. and cover it with hardware cloth?

I have access to free pallets, but I haven't found anything else I can repurpose, so would have to buy new. Untreated wood, unsealed wood, and unpainted wood is a very bad idea here, so I'd have to do something to every wood surface, if I go that direction.

Any and all suggestions would be welcome.

I would go with a wood shed. It's much easier to alter - adding ventilation/windows, putting in roosts, attaching nest boxes, etc.

 

[EliteTempleton]

I would go with a wood shed. It's much easier to alter - adding ventilation/windows, putting in roosts, attaching nest boxes, etc.

But do you know how to update the thread title?

 

[FunClucks]

We have chickens in the run/temporary coop!!! It's the second night of run occupancy. It will take a bit longer to put the metal shed up (permanent coop) and do all the modification (mainly adding ventilation), and the chickens are ~9+ weeks now and too big for the watermelon box. We were starting to have a few peck injuries.

If you guys could take a look and tell me if you think I missed anything? I'll take some more pictures in the daylight tomorrow. The ventilation is nice. I spread the tarp away from the coop to direct the airflow into the coop, and then it can go out either end. Also we get some nice cross-breezes. It's not much more muggy or hot inside the coop with the tarp on than without the tarp on, since it gets some good mottled shade all day. We'll see how it does when temperatures are in the upper 90s, but I have hope. The main point of the tarp in my mind is to allow sunlight while preventing exposure to bird poop from the wild birds in order to avoid avian influenza. I'll probably water the run periodically to keep the dust down and maybe we can grow some grass in a grazing frame or something once the chickens have pecked it bare, depending on how much sun we can get under the tarp.

I've mounted a "Rat Proof Feeder" by The Carpenter Shop on top of a pallet, and zip-tied a kids sand bucket to the back and filled it full of chick and regular sized grit. Had to zip tie another piece of wood closer to the feed trough for an intermediate treadle step, and also zip-tied two metal crescent wrenches to the bottom of the treadle step because my chickens don't weigh a lot yet. Also, I didn't mount the concrete counterweight. The door closes but not quite all the way, so it's not really rat proof at the moment, but once the chickens are bigger it will be. They're the sizes of a large pigeon or a raven right now, depending on the chicken.

Why do my chickens sleep all piled together on top of the cinder block? The first night they slept on the perch mostly, with one on the ground under the rest of the flock, and the other two slept one on top of the treadle step of the feeder, and one UNDER the treadle step of the feeder (see the next to the last picture). I was really confused by that, and tonight they've confused me again. All but two chickens are sleeping on top of each other on top of one cinderblock. Yes, ONE cinderblock. It has an L shape side profile with the end of the perch sticking though, but still, seven chickens on one cinderblock?

One chicken, the lowest in the pecking order, is sleeping by herself at the other end of the perch, about 6 feet away, and the other chicken is sleeping under the pallet shelter, lying in the pine straw. I'm kinda worried about the lowest-on-the-totem-pole chicken getting cold. Low of 67F tonight, high of 87F tomorrow, but I kinda worry for her being by herself. She's not super docile with the other chickens, and fights back, but was slowest to feather and is still the smallest, so I guess there's not much she can do.

I had one question. They've been fighting over pecking order all day today and part of yesterday. Is it normal for hens to challenge a rooster as part of the pecking order? My number two or number 3 hen was challenging the rooster today, and received a bleeding pecking injury on top of her beak. They seem to have calmed down by now, but I hope the Rooster Booster pecking cover-up lotion works. Also, most signs point to her being a hen, but when she challenges the rooster, I begin to wonder...

The first and last picture is the cinderblock they've all piled onto tonight. The next to last picture is how they slept last night.

Yes, I do have a 3+ ft wide apron, because after securing 6-8 inches to the wooden run frame, about 3 feet was left. It's secured with 12" long galvanized steel staples and is absolutely flat to the ground. I put mulch over one end, where there was bare dirt, to try and disguise the edge a bit. The rest, I'm just going to let grass grow through.

 

[Chesadream]

Do you think not having a foundation on the shed would be an issue? Can I set it on the ground (if I put a hardware cloth apron around the outside), or would I have to build a foundation for the shed?

If you don't use hardware screen on the floor or concrete you will get rats inside. the chicken usually treat them like family except they do eat a lot of food

 

[FunClucks]

If you don't use hardware screen on the floor or concrete you will get rats inside. the chicken usually treat them like family except they do eat a lot of food

Good to know, thank you!

 

[FunClucks]

I was thinking of hanging the buckets but you correctly pointed out that the hoop coop is not load bearing. I was going to put the feeder and waterer on cement blocks, but perhaps a slightly taut bungee attached to the hoop could stabilize them a little.

Or you could use the type of wire that folks use to secure chain link fabric to chain link posts. That stuff is easy to bend by hand, pretty durable, and has a load rating. If you're securing from the ceiling, some of that wire tied to your hoop coop with a carabiner on the bottom end to hook your bucket to might be convenient. Since I have vertical 1" steel posts at the sides of my runs (like chain link top rail), I set my buckets next to those, and tie them to the posts with rope or bungies.