Helpful hints for building coops

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CapricornFarm said:
The distance from the red board to the inside of the front board is 2 1/4 ". What do you recommend?
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That should work OK, bigger would be better, you'll have to see how they do with it.

CapricornFarm said:
I do have a piece that will fit down inside to decrease the flow of food. The red and green boards are at the same level, so i can adjust that too. Thanks for the pointers!
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Good, the extra piece is what will make the red line lower than the green line, so the trough is not as full and it's less likely for feed to be billed out.Tho the billing out is really hard to curb. I have played with a half dozen different feeders, most recent seems to be the best so far.
This was taken during the prototyping phase. Details here:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/aarts-almost-waste-free-funnel-bucket-feeder.67218/
Started as a deep dish trigger feeder, scroll way down to see this pipe version.
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Ursuline Chick said:
Everyone talks about predator proofing their coop. Which is very important. But you might consider flood and hurricane proofing as well.
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If you are in an area where that might happen,eg raise your coop if you live on a floodplain. I live in a dry climate and not in a low-lying area, BUT I have a sewer main running across the back of my property which recently blocked up (it only had water coming out of it, not sewage). I've just realized that it's a good thing my coop is raised. It didn't actually run into the chook run, but I noticed the "river" in my back yard pretty quickly, I expect if it had gone unnoticed, the water would have gone everywhere, including into the big girls' run.

Having said that, we can't predict or worry about or protect ourselves from everything that might happen - a raised coop might increase your chances of a fall off the stairs (particularly if you are in a wet or snowy area), or make it more difficult to rescue your chooks if the coop caught fire etc.

Certainly location and potential risk of weather events or other "stuff" can be considered.

I have birds, and I have travel cages in case I have to leave home in a hurry - but I don't have enough for the chooks and would never be able to fit everybody in my hatchback for one trip. It's not something to dwell on, but there's no harm in including all your pets in a "disaster plan".
 
I only have six girls so it is easy for me to talk---I am buying a collapsible dog pen to put in our house (somewhere---we have a dry basement and a garage) in case of a hurricane. I'll toss a big sheet over the top to keep them from wandering and plop everything on a tarp with some pine shavings.
If we have to evacuate I have a huge XXL dog crate (the plastic airline kind that we transported our dog in when we moved 5000 miles) that all of them would fit in. Tight squeeze but better than drowning.
I would live in my damn car with my hubby, dog, and chickens before I would abandon any of them.
We have ponds and streams around our property so who knows what would happen with heavy weather. There are French drains around our home and we haven't had any issues with flooding during heavy rains but if something like Harvey hits all bets are off.
The coop and run are also under some very large black walnut and oak trees and if they come down it's conceivable that they could crush the coop and run.
In that case, we'd be living with flockmates for quite some time. :eek:
 

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