Help me work out the kinks

[Kaybear1950]

We are thinking of building this coop (

). I am attaching pictures of our shed where it will go. We plan to use autozone pans on the bottom and pull them out to clean the poop off. We were thinking of putting in insulation and linoleum flooring with a drain hole to spray off if we needed to, or is that overkill? Do you see any kinks or other things you wish you knew while building your coops?

 

[mdees88]

Looks like a pretty good setup. What feeder and waterer are you planning on using?

I have not had good luck with the standard galvanized hardware cloth (22ga) floors. The stuff I bought from lowes had burrs randomly throughout it from the galvanizing process. It ended up giving a lot of my quails bumble foot. Also with my Jumbos I had some issues with some of the poop not falling through (until they stepped on it and knocked it down).

I am in the process of replacing all my floors with 16ga pvc coated 1/2"x1" welded wire. The wire is thicker which provides a more stable floor which is nice. It helps keep the floor from sagging which ensures all your eggs roll down the slope.

I would recommend using a good quality wire for the floor. If you look at Wynola ranch battery cages and GQF battery cages, they use thick welded wire (12-16ga) that is also around 1/2"x 1" size. Wynola's non heavy duty model uses PVC coated 1/2" x 1" wire as does one of GQF's models.

When you staple the wire floor down make sure the wire is orientated correctly so the eggs will roll down. Very easy to install the wire upside down which won't let the eggs roll right.

I built one of my cages around the autozone pan and it worked but I ended up keeping the quail outside and don't use it anymore. The biggest issue I see with his design is the wood frame around the edges of his floor. The poop will stack up around the edges of the floor and not fall through because it will be sitting on the wood. There are a couple ways to fix this. A pretty simple way (if you build yours exactly like his is to add wood "trim pieces" on the inside around the edges of the floor. They will slightly reduce the floorspace of the cage but the entire floor will allow poop to fall through. I know it's a little confusing. If you don't understand what I'm talking about let me know and I'll draw a picture.

Okay I see that he mounted his wire floor to the bottom of the wood frame, not the top. My last paragraph was assuming he mounted to the top which would leave poop piling up on the edges. Doing it his way means his entire floor is wire and the poop should fall through. I personally don't like the mounted like that because any heavy weight seems like it would cause the staples to work loose over time. But if the wire floor is not supporting the weight of a feeder or waterer and only the weight of the quail maybe it will work.

I think the linoleum floor and a drain would be a nice addition I think. You could also just add casters to the legs and roll it outside occasionally to wash it down. My cages are outside and I spray them down every so often. Where are you from? Might not need the insulation, I keep my quail outside year round.