I have to ask

[kristenm1975]

Zombie Apocalypse...very funny. Old coot or not, you DO keep current.

Beyond that, I'm delighted to see your system at work. It sounds just like something John Seymour of "The Self-Sufficient Life and How to Live It" would have rigged up. Totally unpretentious, effective, and makes use of natural systems to prevent pests, rather than using chemicals.

Thank you for sharing!

 

[NC ChickenKate]

re. raised coops and why...

I rent a house inside the city limits and number of chickens is stricktly enforced. I wanted chickens for col;ored eggs and pets mostly. I'm over 60 so it has to be really easy to clean. The entire ground around here is sand. I also wanted to enjoy time with my chickens while they were in their run.

Solutions: I designed and built a coop that when we move to another place will stay here and be modified easily to a storage shed or a child's play house. It is 18 inches off the ground because... a. high enough to not look like a cave so no critters will move in and raise babies (next door neighbor lady will feed the racoons on occasion) b. Nine inches is a standard step rise and that gives me a safe ingress and egress from the coop on my shaky old legs. c. air circulation around both the outside and inside of the coop keeps everyone healthier.
It has a poop pit under the roosts so rather than have to rake/ shovel the entire coop floor once or twice a week I can collect easily and daily with a rake (another good reason it is 18" off the gound is ease of raking) My roosts are designed so they can be removed and scraped/ hosed off and dried as often as needed and then re-installed easily. The wire under the roosts over the poop pit is easily hosed down or broomed to clean.
Every nest box (7) has it's own door so no heavy doors to lift. The coop is 7 x 7 with a 7 foot high peak (7 is my lucky number). I can legally have up to 24 bantams (it's a square footage per chicken thing with the city) when I have my 10 x 24 hoop house finally built and attached to the 7 x7 chicken yard.

When I lived in N. Idaho I would have built a very different coop!

Best to all da' chooks NC Chicken Kate

 

[heatherkh]

AtholCoop - Love that pic of your coop in the snow! Was just in your neck of the woods. We have a family cabin up just below Avery Camp on the CdA River Road (about milepost 28 off of I-90). My fantasy is to retire up there...my favorite part of the country!

 

[AtholCoop]

Quote:
I've tried a lamp over my water founts before...just doesn't cut for me when it's -15 high temps. The only way I can keep the water from freezing in my 4x4x8 coop is with 2-250watt heat lamps. Not too efficient to heat the whole coop when only the water needs it.

Thus I've started using this set up https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=457620

With a thermostat set to turn the whole circuit on only when inside the coop temps falls below +40, and then a seperate thermostat that actually controls the heater based on the temperature of the water itself, kept my water temps at +70 all winter with NO heat in the coop. The heater is only 100 watts and since it's only running enough to keep the water temps in a very small temperature range the wattage is considerably less than the 500 I was using before especially considering that the heat lamps ran pretty much 24/7 for 2-3 months just to hold the inside temps at +40.

But back to the OP. When I get 10' of snow, having one less thing to dig out is a blessing. Just walking in front of the coop everyday getting eggs and packing the snow down usually suffices, unless we get drifts into the trench that forms. Even at that I only usually have to dig the coops out once every couple weeks.

 

[AtholCoop]

Quote:
I know the Avery area quite well. In fact ride in and out of there all the time on ATV's right from my house. Lunch runs to the Snakepit in Enaville, or Murray are kind of our version of a poker run.

 

[MontanaMomma]

I normally only use a 60 watt bulb in each of my coops, about 15 inches above the water bowl. It provides extended lighting, it keeps the water from freezing, for the most part, and it provides some warmth in the coop. My big coop has 2 floor, it's 4x8 by 6 ft high. They sleep/roost in the top floor and any heat from the bottom rises up. On those really cold blizzardy nights, I can leave the light on all night, and they still go upstairs to roosts, where just barely gets to. They have a whole in the floor with a ladder to get up there.

At first I used a regular 60 or 100 watt light bulb 24/7 to keep the water from freezing and to fend off frostbite during really cold snaps (-20 with blasting wind) last year. Then my hens turned into crazy mean ladies with a 'tude. I did some research and found reason to believe lighting your coop 24 hours causes aggressive behavior in chickens, not to mention messes up their cycles. I switched to a red heat light and all is well in the world again. Regular light bulb simulates day light, so too much is not good for their beans. I tried a red colored party light, but it kept burning out. Now I use a 150 heat lamp hooked to a timer (to save on the green). Hopefully this winter will be easier with our new insulated coop. Yaye!​

 

[beach livin']

Im going up on about 2-3 foot due to the fact that I have a limited area I am building in; it will give more run space. I also live on the coast and the majority of my community got the 8-10 foot tidal surge from Irene. I just dont want to take a chance. My ladies will be warm this winter because I plan to have the layering inside and I plan to cut a door into the adjoining shed and give them a "winter box" if they need it. Just dont tell my husband, because he doesnt know I plan to hack away on his "man shed" yet

 

[weeders n feeders]

Mine is raised on stilts. My reason is it give a dry space for food and shade. Being in the south cold is not an issue but heat is therefore I have an open air coop all hardware cloth with just enough wood to give structure for the wire and to support a roof. There is sand in the coop because I wanted something easy to be able to collect some poo. My compost has too much brown matter as it is so did not want to add anything more by using any other litter but I did want some poo to add to the pile and as fertilizer for my plants. With the coop being raised and all hardware cloth I don't have to worry about snakes or other bad guys finding some hole or digging in. Before this coop I lost many chicks- young and full grown to snakes and bobcats and unknowns.
I'll agree some seem to take it to the extreme but it is their choice. You can take a minimalist approach and let them purely free range(accepting some loss) or provide a millionaire mansion for them (and still may have some loss) The beauty of it is either way they can be happy.
It's kind of like raising children. My kids survived with a crib for 9 months then a mattress on the floor. I had a car seat and a portable highchair but that was about it. Cardboard boxes were the favorite toys. And almost all clothes were hand me arounds. My sister on the other hand has spent several thousand $$ on equipment for hers so far (she's only 6 months) and complains of not having enough room and that the baby hates the 200 $ swing. To each his own and they grow up one way or the other.

 

[mpf]

Having the structure on stilts means there is normally a hole in the floor, -w- a ramp.
That hole causes a big increase in the air circulation of the coop.
Seems important when the things are crapping so much within their confined space...

 

[Tiss]

Mine is raised because there's not a flat spot on my property. Building a raised structure was much easier than trying to level a spot on which to build. As a bonus, it created a nice cool and dry outdoor space for the flock.