HELP with bantam winter pen door design, please!!

[Rare Feathers Farm]

So my new coop (which I'm hoping will be unveiled soon! LOL) will have 3 bantam pens. These are 38 x 48" and will house pairs or trios during the winter. For the spring/summer/early fall, I'm planning (and don't tell hubby) for some playhouse type coops with runs for the breeding season.

Anyone want to build me some? I'll trade ya some eggs or birds! PM ME...

Anywhooo....

These pens are going to be high in the coop and they will have wood about 2/3 of the way up on the sides wire from there to the ceiling. Each one needs a nest box (accessible from the aisle way) and a roost.

Ideally, I'd like their waterer/food on the OUTSIDE of their pens--like pop bottle waterers and a feeder that hangs on the outside but what kind of wire to use?

Hubby got so much last week that I didn't have a chance to help with the floor--I wanted a removable tray but it's too late for that now...and there is not a lip (yet) to hold back the shavings...

These will be a challenge to clean out, I know and I've got a new stepstool for the challenge--but how to design the doors? I'm also looking for help with the roost/droppings board/tray...??

Here are the pics of the one that is started (it's on the left of the blue storage tubs in my storage area):

 

[Rare Feathers Farm]

anyone?

 

[2txmedics]

question, am looking at pictures...and hard to tell but do you have more ventilation for the coop? Chickens are heavy breathers...respirations are about 320 per minute at a resting phase. so with several chickens in a coop...thats alot of wet respirations, from there internal organs....

Im asking because I learned this AFTER I made our coop..I learned its the cause of many respiratory illness in them...just a thought...off the subject, sorry....

its the MEDIC IN ME...

 

[patandchickens]

Yup, I hope the other sides of the coop have LOTS of ventilation, especially since didn't you have a buncha frostbite problems last winter?

Anyhow, if it were me I would probably build it so there were two doors that met in the middle, like the doors of a cabinet, so there is less doorswing for you to have to dodge with your head when standing on a stepstool. The nestbox could be against one of teh front corners, with the side against the front door being open (covered only by the door) so to access the nestbox you'd open only that half of the doors. Alternatively you could split the pen front asymmetrically, and have a dedicated nestbox door and a longer second door for the pen; I'd still make them meet in the middle (tho of course off-center) like cabinet doors, though. And I think you almost HAVE to put the nestbox in one of the front corners if you wanna be able to reach it.

If you use 1x1 welded wire for the fronts (doors), framed in wood of course, there will be enough strength to hang a pop bottle waterer and a small feeder on the door. You won't need a waterer heater in your climate? I forget how cold you said it was getting last winter.

You might consider a trapdoor somewhere in the floor of the cage, with hooks to hang a bucket or muck-bucket under it. Then to clean the cage you would just unlatch the trapdoor and snowplow the litter through the hole into the waiting, hands-free, bucket. Otherwise you will be getting a lot of pooey litter in your face I think

Good luck,

Pat

 

[Rare Feathers Farm]

Quote:
Oh yeah...that picture is literally 1/4 of the coop...maybe less...there are vents on each side and I'm installing a solar powered exhaust fan, too! I'm planning a few more vents in the front...and the rest, hubby and I are still brickering about...

 

[Rare Feathers Farm]

Quote:
That's a good idea. Hubby found some thick (but not too heavy) rubber mats we're going to use to line the bantam areas (shavings over the tops) so I can just pull them out & dump them outside. We're going to do some sort of hardware cloth dropping pan under the roost to help keep the shavings cleaner...

Yeah, I did have a bunch of frostbite last winter from waterers being splashed/tipped over and having the shavings get wet.

No waterfowl will be in the coop this winter, though!
There are several vents (that open & close) on each end of the coop as well as a solar powered exhaust fan (with thermostat) that we're going to install on the north side (largest wall & highest part of the roof).

As for the rest, we've not decided quite how we're going to do that, yet...hubby and I are arguing about what to do. We've spent a lot of money on insulation, new siding, plywood, etc and I can see his point of not wanting to hack a bunch of holes into the new walls--however, we have very dry winters but very cold. So there's a fine line between -10 in the coop and wind howling in.

I scoped out some 10 foot high pine trees on our property that we're moving with the backhoe this fall to the north side of the coop to (hopefully) serve as windbreaks from the worst of the high winds.

As far as water...I'll just have to do what cottage rose does and water them twice (or once like she does) per day...so we'll see how that goes. I don't have enough electricity out by the coop to power the horse fence, horse trough de-icer, light for birds AND 10 de-icers for my birds (one for each section). So it's kind of tricky. I've been looking for more solar panels to try to hook up that would power a de-icer or two--but from what I've found, I'd need a serious series of panels and probably about $5,000 to get started!