Help with designing 10x20 coop

[chickawhat]

I’ve built just about every kind of coop you can think of and now (hopefully) for my last coop, I’ll be building an open air coop. I am at a loss for inspiration. If you had a 10x20 blank slate, how would you design it?
some helpful info:
*Im in the Texas hill country = lots of sun & strong wind & when it does finally rain it is A LOT all at once.
*I dug 10 inches down & reached solid limestone, added irrigation rock, gravel, garden fabric then crushed granite/sand mix (all stuff found on my property)
* structure is made of 10X10 steel panels sitting on 4x4 treated lumber with a tin lean-to roof.
*the actual chicken yard will be from the trees to the shed.
*I would like multiple roosting & laying areas because chickens are mean to each other.
I would love it if someone could help me out with this one. What would you guys do with this size coop?

 

[JacinLarkwell]

You want at least one wall blocking the side the wind/rain usually comes from

 

[chickawhat]

You want at least one wall blocking the side the wind/rain usually comes from

Yes. We very very strong wind gusts so I need to lock wind at the same time keep the ventilation going because it’s so hot here

 

[Alaskan]

My sis lives in the hill country and has a coop with solid walls on the bottom, top half of walls wire, super deep eaves.

Perches are at the height of the wire walls.

When it blows and storms through, the chickens get off the perches and stand on the ground against the walls.

My grandmother's coop was the same.... but she had storm shutters that came down over three of the open sides. The front wall was better protected by a porch, so was never closed.

So.... if you want a wall at perch height for storms, make it removable. Where you are at, a breeze at perch height is needed.

I think this coop plan from etsy has a nice open air lay out. Not sure that all of that wind blocking that they do is needed/good... but some is probably nice.

 

[Alaskan]

For arranging stuff....

I would do this:

Perches are pink, horizontal, same height. Either with or without poop shelf.... ... stuff to right are nests.

The 2 circles are feed and water.

But....how many chickens?

 

[3KillerBs]

I'd lay it out as 2, 10x10, mirror-image coops with a door between them so that, if necessary, I could divide the space to separate breeding flocks, replacement chicks, etc. or use the entire thing for one flock depending on circumstances.

I'm not at home where I can access the photos on my desktop, but I should be able to get you some pictures of my Open Air coop, Neuchickenstein.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

I would use a site like this to look at prevailing wind conditions to determine (for those in the Austin area, at least) that coming into the summer months they want the South wall essentially wide open to move as much air thru as possible while its ungodly hot and probably also the East wall, for late summer (or perhaps a half wall on the East), but that the North wall should be the full wall to block out winter wind-blown rains (which, admittedly, Austin gets little of).

Plus @3KillerBs 's suggestions above.

And for personal convenience, I'd give real thought to external nesting box access when building those walls.

and I'd likely build roosting bars as a ladder, allowing the chickens to get high (and into the breeze) during the summer or lower, and weather protected, during the cooler months - March and October, I believe, will be your periods of greatest concern - they have the highest winds, most rainfall, and broadest temperature swings (frostbite concerns). [Again, assuming Austin area Hill Country]

I'd also be very selective in my chicken breeds.

 

[3KillerBs]

This is my coop build thread: https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/large-open-air-coop-in-central-nc.1443812/

And this is the coop in Texas that inspired it: https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/jens-hens-a-southern-texas-coop.75707/

You can see that I maximized airflow while offering shelter from the prevailing storm winds. I haven't divided it yet, but it's designed to be able to split it in half and to divide the half that's away from the nests into sections. My intent is to make a built-in brooder.

I left myself the option of putting up tarps to shield the roosts in case of a severe storm.