Help me modify this coop please!

[lovetorenovate]

We started out with that tiny costco chicken coop (way too small, although we only had two birds) then got this coop from a neighbor (along with two older chickens). His wife was DONE with having chickens, so we got the coop and his birds for free - which seemed like a great plan at the time. We moved it onto our lot (a pretty small urban lot - about .26 acres) - and have found that it's just too big - and too cumbersome.

A few of the major irritations:
1 The lid for the nesting boxes must weigh 30 lbs - I hesitate to send one of my kids out there for eggs for fear their fingers will be slammed. Plus with 4 chickens, we don't need 5 nesting boxes. We have rocks in two of the boxes so the chickens currently use 3 boxes, but even that is more than we need.
2 There's tongue and groove pine floor in the roosting area. We've covered it with sand, which I screen and toss the poop into our compost about once a week - but the door to access that area is on a hinge from above. You need to crouch down to get in there - and the door hovers over your head - this door must be 60 lbs at least. It's somewhat terrifying should the door fall out from whatever is propping it up - and knock me on the head.
3 We're lacking adequate ventilation.
4 I think we want to stick with 4-5 chickens maximum - and given how small our lot is, we'd like a relatively small coop. We do let them free range most days, all day - with a few exceptions if it's pouring rain or we are out of town for a couple days. Our yard is fenced.
5 This coop is made with chicken wire - not hardware cloth. I've heard so many times this isn't sufficient. My neighbor claims it's fine - with our fenced yard I guess we are somewhat protected, but I'd probably like to improve the long term safety while I'm making modifications.
6. I feel like the screen door is hinged on the wrong side (easy enough change, just another design consideration) - in my ideal world, it's hinged so when open it's against the coop, not flapping in the wind.

So... I keep wavering on just getting rid of this one - and starting over - but it's not so easy to sell or move such a large coop. (it's 10x6 not counting the nesting box area). I'm hoping to get to a roost size of around 4x4, 2-3 nesting boxes, and a moderate sized run. Eventually I'd like to add an automated door as well, along with some lighting for the winter months. I do like the full size door to enter the coop.

Any ideas or suggestions on making it smaller and improving the design frustrations???

 

[chynasparks]

My coop slightly resembles your design. Mostly the enclosed area with roost box in upper corner. I can't put more than 4 in it. Hubby built hinged doors on the outside of the roost box. I just swung both doors open, I can collect eggs and clean poop board without going inside. I do have to go in to feed and water. I'm finally adding a run. They are a year old and frustrated with my hearding them around for supervised free range. Perhaps you could change out the heavy lid on yours? Who's I had more ideas for you. It looks nice especially for a freebie. Good luck

 

[chynasparks]

Typo, it's supposed to say "sorry" I don't have more ideas for you. Spell check got me again

 

[donrae]

If you need more ventilation, and the doors are too heavy, will it work to cut out the wood from the doors and replace it with wire? That would lighten the weight and give more ventilation.

Do you have better pics showing your problem areas? I'm pretty visual, so pics are good.

 

[lovetorenovate]

Here's what we've done. I think I'll call this good enough for now. It's much more functional. We did not make it any smaller - but we did focus on some of the safety and access problems. I let the chickens free range most of the time - but after slipping in chicken poo a few times lately - they may be spending more time locked up - so I guess keeping it as large as possible is best.

We cut the cover for the nesting boxes - so there are two separate lids now - one for two nesting boxes, the other for 3 boxes. We also added a lid support to help protect little fingers of my kids who are asked to collect eggs.
We took off the giant door that was hinged on top - and replaced it with one large ventilation window and two small doors that swing out (both covered in hardware cloth).
We painted the entire coop.
We added a ventilation window on the back side of the coop.
Eventually, we'll replace the chicken wire with hardware cloth throughout. Hopefully before we have any predator issues.
We also added another roost inside the coop - there was only about 30" of roosting space - although not one chicken will use it yet. I guess they are just getting acclimated??