ideas on base for coop please

[flossyandprissy]

Bought a clearanced coop but it sits on the ground. Want to build a base/legs to lift it up off the ground. Ideas?

 

[ClovisMan]

Measure the bottom/base of the coop and build a stand from some 4x4's and a couple of 2x4's. Shouldn't be an issue??

 

[Alex41]

This is what I did. My coop is bigger than yours, but the concept is the same. The skids are good for moving the coop if you need to do that. Even if you don't move the coop use pressure treated wood where the stand contacts the ground to avoid rotting.




Alex

 

[Alex41]

Another pic

 

[yogifink]

Set it on a couple cinder blocks?

 

[cstronks]

Measure the bottom/base of the coop and build a stand from some 4x4's and a couple of 2x4's. Shouldn't be an issue??

This is the best idea. Depending on how high you are raising it, you may want to dig in the 4 x 4s, but making a plateau for it to sit on is definitely the best bet.

 

[flossyandprissy]

Anyone know of any basic designs for this? We need a visual.

 

[Chickens R Us]

We used 2x8x8s for the floor joists and 8x8's for the posts to elevate the coop. This coop is 8x16.

 

[4 the Birds]

How big is the coop and how high up off the ground do you want the base? Buy several pressure treated 4x4's and you can make a simple frame with joists. From there you can lay plywood for the flooring or use deck boards. Pretty easy to do by connecting posts using metal angles and screws. Typically, smaller coops are raised up 2 or 3 feet from the ground for ease of access and to utilize the space under the coop for shade. Use a post hole digger to set the corner posts in the ground a few feet to ensure high winds won't topple the coop. For larger coops on level ground, I build the base on the ground (again all pressure treated wood). Hope this helps.

 

[Ridgerunner]

A visual of your coop would help us out a lot. How big is it? Is it a walk-in coop or a small one? What does the floor and framing look like? How high do you want to raise it?

About anywhere you are going to have to deal with high winds, so the base needs to be able to handle that and you need to firmly fasten your coop to the supports. Depending on how big it is, how high you raise it, and the strength of your coop framing, that may be nothing more than some 2x4 posts fixed in the ground and cut off level, or you may need to use something much more substantial with truss work, which is a fancy way of saying to put in a few diagonals or maybe some horizontals.

If your coop already has a floor, you don’t need any plywood or lumber decking. You just need some supports to fasten it too.

I don’t have a visual that would really show you anything, but for my 4’ x 8’ grow-out coop I repurposed something I already had made with a simple frame of 2x4’s and covered in plywood. It was pretty strong structurally. The soil it was going in was a strong rocky clay. Your soils makes a difference too in how you fix the posts.

I dug holes at the corners about 18” deep with post hole diggers and set the posts on concrete. My posts were treated 2x4’s 4 feet long. I built a frame out of untreated 2x4’s that perfectly matched the bottom of my existing coop and used that to position the posts so that frame could be screwed not the side of the 2x4 posts. When setting the posts I did not worry too much about height, but I took care to get them vertical and spaced right. After the concrete set up, I cut the tops off those 2x4’s so they were level, then screwed that frame into them so it was level. A good level is a good tool to have for something like this.

I set that coop on top of that frame and used strips of plywood to tie the base to the coop. I used 6” wide strips of plywood and screwed them into the 2x4 frame on top of the supports and the bottom 2x4’s of the coop. If you do that on all four sides, it’s not going anywhere. I’ve had 70 mile per hour straight line winds through that area without a problem. My coop was strong enough I really did not need that frame but I built it to line the posts up right so I figured I’s just use it.

Hopefully you will get something useful out of this. Without knowing more about your specific situation I can’t get any more specific than thus. Good luck!