Help Please. Store bought coop problem

[joylynne]

My children bought me a store bought chicken coop for Mother's Day and it is great, except that the roosting boxes seem to be made out of pressed particle board. So what should I do to make it more durable and to last longer. I thought to just buy some plastic containers and to put them in there. Any ideas?

 

[paneubert]

This is a hard situation since it was a Mother's Day gift.....that is pretty much going to be utter crap in the long run. You don't want to hurt their feelings though. Other than completely beefing it all up with additional wood reinforcements, sealing/staining/painting it to protect from the elements....you will probably not see it last that long. People who "tweak" the store bought coops often spend more money on the tweaking than the cost of the original coop.

Would they be sad/mad if you returned it and had them build you a coop or pay someone to build one for you?

 

[joylynne]

I have a lot of paint lying around the house. I think I will paint it and then cut up some plastic containers I have around here. It should cost too much.

 

[paneubert]

How many chickens and what are the dimensions of the coop and run? Let's make sure you don't waste time on it if it is not going to be big enough for your birds.

 

[joylynne]

I'm not sure about the dimensions. My husband probably knows; however, I only have 4 chickens. Just guess it's probably a couple feet by a couple yards.

 

[paneubert]

Just be aware that it is virtually guaranteed that the advertised capacity is not based in reality. This is virtually gospel when it comes to commercial/store bought coops. Please ensure your coop (not including run) has at least 3-4 square feet per chicken. 99.9% of store bought coops will advertise something closer to 1-2 square feet per chicken. Sometimes on the low end of that even.....

So ask the husband if the coop is 16 square feet. If not, think about how you want to handle that before you invest a lot of time or effort into modifying the coop. There are ways that you could modify it to be larger while also trying to paint/preserve it. Could be all one project.

Post a photo for us or a link to it being sold and we can give more advice.

 

[rosemarythyme]

Would they be sad/mad if you returned it and had them build you a coop or pay someone to build one for you?

Even if it does end up being too small it can still see use as an isolation cage or a future chick brooder/integration pen. I ended up just leaving my brooder (formerly a prefab coop) in the run full time as I've found uses for it.

 

[aart]

Post a photo for us or a link to it being sold and we can give more advice.

Ditto Dat^^^

Oh, and.... Welcome to BYC! @joylynne
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