If you had it to do over again, what would you change about your coop/run?

[Tiller]

Make the run bigger. I know by definition mine is big enough but I plan to expand it sometime this year to give all my girls a place to move around. Seems like the more space in the run the happier the birds are.

I added a "clean out door" to the coop after I had it set up, and chickens already in. I should have done that when I was setting the coop up initially.

The only change I may or may not do still is to add nesting boxes accessible from the outside. The coop is easily big enough to walk into, I don't mind going in and picking eggs, it gives me a good chance to look over everything and check out all the birds but my wife isn't always a fan of it when I have to work over.

 

[dunnmom]

If I could do it again, I'd have asked hubby to make the coop a bit bigger, bigger nestboxes. Our run could stand to be a little bigger, too, so I could put in a broody pen, or a broody breaker/chicken jail.

 

[IamRainey]

If I were doing mine again I'd want to make it bigger but I really was always limited by the size of the yard it's in. I might have been able to squeeze out a bit more space if I'd set my mind to it though.

Really, in the end, having it built for us cost more than I ever anticipated at the outset. But now that we're over the sticker shock -- because we had to hire a carpenter -- there's very little that hasn't worked out well.

 

[Morrigan]

I'm fairly happy with my coop set up, but if I really could start from scratch and do it all over again:

1) Would have run electricity to the coop. This is our biggest gripe. We didn't realize that we would need mamma brooding pads and summer fans, plus an electric fence. We finally got a solar powered electric fence, but in the summer we have an unsightly extension cord trailing from our garage, over the yard, up the driveway and into the coop.

2) Made it bigger. Duh! It's not just chicken math, but I didn't think about how great it would be to have multiple adjacent brooding areas. I also didn't even consider that I might like to keep two parallel flocks with different roosters for breeding purposes.

For anyone reading this who hasn't built their coop yet -- THINK BIG.

 

[Blooie]

Wheelchair access for little Kendra, our granddaughter. But appearance, functionality, ease of build and working, stability, weather and predator protection? I wouldn't change one single thing.

Your coop/run is beautiful! I saw your earlier post on Facebbok as well and commented there.

This is ours in summer:

And in winter:

Edited to add: if it looks a lot longer in the winter photo than in the summer pic, that's because it is. So easy - just took off the end in one solid piece, added another cattle panel and put the end back on.

 

[Backyard Bruce]

I made an 10x5 walk in coop and I think next year I’ll expand to a 10x10 coop

 

[Tiana's chickens]

Bigger because chicken maths happened,
also I wish we didn't make ours out of wood because it's starting to rot unfortunately but ah well

 

[snow5164]

I wouldn’t change a thing , I got 3 seperate coops in one building with a work area for me. 3 separate runs , safe and sound.

We did design a nesting box/ roost /poop board all in one that’s just perfect for me
Yup I’m happy as a clam in pig poop .. oh how does that go ????

 

[MROO]

I'm fairly happy with my coop set up, but if I really could start from scratch and do it all over again:

1) Would have run electricity to the coop. This is our biggest gripe. We didn't realize that we would need mamma brooding pads and summer fans, plus an electric fence. We finally got a solar powered electric fence, but in the summer we have an unsightly extension cord trailing from our garage, over the yard, up the driveway and into the coop.

2) Made it bigger. Duh! It's not just chicken math, but I didn't think about how great it would be to have multiple adjacent brooding areas. I also didn't even consider that I might like to keep two parallel flocks with different roosters for breeding purposes.

For anyone reading this who hasn't built their coop yet -- THINK BIG.

OMG YES! Electricity directly to the coop ... or solar panel system built in from the start!

 

[ClucksAndCombs]

We built my coop and run 9 years ago, and New England winters have hit it hard. Because of this, I do want to redo the run and have most of it covered and a lot bigger. The chicken wire is sagging and probably can't take another hard winter.
Over the summer, we plan on redoing the wire and building a cover for half of the coop. The coop was originally meant for 8 chickens with three nesting boxes. We currently have 12 hens with six wild 18 wk EEs flitting about. We're gonna need a bigger and more active/fun run, and perhaps more nesting boxes.