Help my land floods and I have a permanent coop?

[Chquinta]

We built a chicken coop with run and now that is been raining its flooded and can't move my coop. What should I do?

 

[cavemanrich]

Only thing I can think for your situation right now is this. Get some wooden pallets and place into area so chicks can be out of water. Maybe stretch some tarps over the pallets so their feet don' t keep falling thru. Then look for a long term solution. I am not at your location so I cant see what the long term solution is. WISHING YOU BEST.

 

[Chquinta]

Thanks, I was thinking of doing that myself pallets with plywood and then make it inclosed coop lifted on top of pallets..

 

[Jackschicks]

Chquinta,
I had the same problem. My chicken coop and run are on the back of my property which is unfortunately the lowest spot. I had terrible problems with flooding in the beginning. I am going on my second year with chickens and we have made several modifications from our original setup. The original setup was a 6 x 12 foot wire dog kennel with a modified old shed for a coop. The shed/coop was sitting on pallets and a tin roof was over the whole thing. Had a lot of problems with mice and other things wanting to live under the coop and the whole thing turned into a huge muddy mess every time it rained. The bottom of the dog kennel was rusting from sitting in the water and mud. We expanded the pen (I found a couple of more dog kennels for cheap or free on craigslist and freecycle) and I put bricks (free from freecycle) underneath of the bottom of the pen and then brought in dirt and filled it in. The inside of the pen is now higher than the ground around it and drains off pretty well so my chicks are not constantly in the mud. The tin roof keeps away the hawks and keeps things relatively dry. This past summer we built a new and bigger coop to replace the original and it is 3 ft above the ground. The chickens have a little ramp to get up into it and they are able to scratch around in the dirt underneath. The new pen/coop area is now about 20 x 30. The tin roof covers a 12 x 20 area the remainder just has a wire roof. Lots and lots of room for my 8 hens and 1 rooster. I plan on greatly expanding my flock this year, just having trouble deciding what kind of chickens I want.
Hope this helps you. Like everything in life, keeping chickens has been a learning experience for me. Good luck!!

 

[Chquinta]

This is what I have now. And was thinking of putting dirt and then raising and enclosing the coop.

 

[Chquinta]

 

[The Lazy L]

Use a hydraulic jack to raise coop and run up 6" or so. Fill in the 6" with sand. That will put their floor height higher than the surrounding ground and allow for good drainage.

 

[Chquinta]

I've heard about putting wood chips or mulch down too.. Would that be a good idea for now until I have money to get some sand dumped.

 

[tjo804]

Oh wow at this point anything is better than what you have!

I would add everything dirt sand woodchips dead leaves grass clippings shredded paper anything that will soak up that water you do not want their feet always in cold water it will bring down their body temp. Also as the water stands it will breed bacteria and pests.

I would also add maybe a kiddie pool of dirt and wood ash so they can find dry dirt to dust bathe that helps keep them free of external parasites like fleas and mites.

Good luck

 

[Chquinta]

Ok great I'll go buy some mulch maybe sand if it's in my budget. I did buy hay and put it down so they could walk on that but it's just a cheap fix.