How far away from the house?

[Chick_In_The_Burbs]

My coop is about ten feet away from the corner of the house kinda diagonally. There's only the three hens for now but there's no smell and I only hear them when they get REALLY excited about an egg on the way.

 

[BYOChickens]

Thanks for the help so far. I have two locations for the coop. One is about 40' out the back yard the other 60'. Drainage and shade are equal. Snows a couple time a year and melts within a few days. Four season climate out west here. Wondering if I am overthinking how airtight to contruct it. Maybe keep it more ventilated than the colder climate folks. Has anyone ever used solar landscaping lighting mounted inside the coop for winter months??? Would be easier than trenching out power to the coop. The lights would not provide heat but some light. Any thoughts?

 

[WhySayWhat]

The solar lights would need a fair amount time in the sunlight to recharge. I know the ones my mom has around her driveway dim to almost completely off during winter months because they don't get enough solar to recharge the battery.

 

[Happy Chooks]

Ventilation is extremely important on a coop. 30 feet would be good, easy access in rainy weather. Keep in mind that chicken poop attracts flies. And if you plan on having roosters, you don't want them too close to the house. (unless you want a really good alarm clock)

 

[joannamiller573]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]I would love to know this answer myself, my husband attached the fencing to our home, and the smell is horrid, I try to save money and open the windows, well my house smells like a chicken coop. He put a shed for them off the back side outside our daughters bed room and she cannot open her window. These birds are free range, and they roost on my front porch, needless to say there is chicken poop everywhere. I have about had it, I would rather pay $2.00 a dozen for eggs than put up with this, it was not bad at first, but now there is no grass i the back and nothing to help cut the smell. He spends almost $200 a month on chicken and rabbit food, I do not see where we are saving anything. He also used to raise chicks and sell them, that helped off set the cost some, now he does not seem that interested in them any more and we just live and deal with the cost. We need to sell at least 100 dozen eggs a month to break even on just food.[/FONT]

 

[MsChickenMomma]

My coop is about 300ft from the barn. That's not how far I would have wanted it, but that just happened to be where our small barn was built. I clean my coop twice a month all year long except winter, and never have a problem with smell. Even when I'm in my barn (which is about 14x20ft give or take, so it's quite small) there isn't any problem with smell. In the winter to help keep the smell at bay we put a fresh layer of shavings over any manure about twice a week, and it works great!

I don't think you have to worry about the smell. As long as you clean your coop regularly, you should have no problems! And like some other people on this thread stated, good ventilation is also the key to a clean smelling coop

 

[mechey]

I have my chickens to enjoy watching. The hen house and run is approximately 20 feet from our deck. It is under a large oak tree which gives wonderful shade. We keep their house and run clean so there is no odor, unless our noses have just gotten use to it. We love watching them go to roost at night, and especially watching the mother hens raise and teach their young. If their run was 50 or 75 feet from our house, I would never really be able to watch and inter react with them.

 

[Hokum Coco]

How far away from the house????

As far as you can carry a 5 gallon pail of water or a 50lb bag of feed comfortably is my best advise.

 

[CVL]

We're building our coop and run onto the side of our house. We're enclosing under the back deck (which is on the second floor) to give them a sheltered 12'x15' run that will also house their coop (building a 4'x6'x5' pallet coop). For us it's more of a "where can we build to make it safe for the chickens" question, since we have multiple predators including neighbor cats and crows. The area we picked is no where near our bedrooms or kitchen, which are all upstairs, but is where we spend a good portion of our days so we'll be able to see what's going on and keep them safe.

 

[Sally PB]

@CVL, this is what we call a zombie thread. The last post before yours was 8 years ago.

If you have a question, it's better to start a new thread so that more people will see it.

And, welcome to BYC!