Interior Coop Pics

[kittycooks]

I love this thread! So many creative coop ideas and many are beautifully appointed. Here is my coop. Very simple. The hens spend most of the time in the attached run. Two hens sleep in the small box with the plexi door, two silkies sleep in the nest box in the middle by the ladder, and the rest sleep on the roost in the chicken run.

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[AZBootsie]

All of these sparkling clean, pristine interiors are beautiful.

But, I am done following this thread!!

I don't know how you all do it?? Poopless chickens?? Every other day I take a drywall putty knife and literally scrape off the poo from my roosts and poop boards. Every week or two I have to scrub poo from the ceilings all down the walls. Do you re-paint every day??

It is just too depressing to admire your impossibly clean coops and then head out to find poopy splatters on the walls that I just scrubbed.

 

[NHchicks]

Okay. I'm really stuck on the plastic nest boxes. I really liked the kitty litter box towards the beginning of the thread, but I see those are $20+ each. So now I'm thinking the Sterlite nest boxes shown would probably be about $6 each, and that's cheaper, maybe not quite as pretty as the kitty litter boxes.

I like them because they're moveable, and if they get too ick you can take them outside and hose them out.

Anyone see a negative to using plastic nesting boxes?

 

[6chick*start]

Sounds good but I tell ya, 5 of my big girls have been laying every day for about 35 days now in three built in wood boxes.
Nothing but a feather now and then and NEVER a poop in the boxes! Sweet!
The plastic boxes on the floor ... not one egg. They line up and wait for the wood.

 

[6chickens in St. Charles]

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I have to wonder about your chickens' poop? Our chickens had runny sticky poop when we had a bag of Nutrena feed. Once we switched back to Purina Layena or Purina flock raiser, their poops became firmer and lovely. (I'm sorry but I'm a nurse and sometimes the truth is that some poops are lovely, compared to the unlovely ones

) (True, I guess I'm wallowing in poop from sun up til sun down, and then some!) (

)

Purina Layena and Flock Starter works for us. I'm not saying it would work for everybody, but I am saying that your environment and your feed will seem to have a combination that works, vs one that doesn't. Keep trying to tweak that nutrition until you get lovely poops. I'm sure you can get what you want.

Our chickens' poops are more like everybody elses' turds, that is, you could pick them up with your hands or a tongs if you wanted to, they're easy to pick up with a pooper scooper, they're not wet or sticky.... the only time I have to scrub is after they've had bananas or certain fruits like grapes. this week, DS made a cornstarch science project which the birds accidentally ate, BOY oh BOY was that sticky on the driveway!

 

[LiLRedCV]

We just moved our girls into their new coop today! (no pics of the girls in there yet tho' - wanted them to get settled a bit first before I went in with a camera with a flash! LOL) Anyway, these are the "before girls moved in" pics. The new coop is a 10'x10' shed kit from Home Depot and converted to suit our needs.

Nesting boxes (12ct) are the 15"L x 12"W x 6"D black dish pans purchased at Walmart's for under $2 each. It's very open on first and second nesting rows, but just cozy enough the girls already laid us 15 eggs in them today!!

Not yet completed/added are the nest box & brooder box exterior access doors.... (we wanted to get the girls in before the rainy weather arrived!)

Directly underneath the nest boxes is the chick brooder. Right now, we can only access this brooder from the inside... Hoping hubby gets the exterior doors done soon! 'Cuz UGH! What a pain in the tush to get on my hands and knees to clean, feed, and water.

We have one 10ft 2"x4" roosting bar with a middle support post along the far back wall and one ladder 6ft 2"x2"x4 rungs roosting bar that is easily lifted up and moved out of the way for cleaning underneath. We're using a deep litter method for the floor using a combination of pine shavings and shredded paper.

The south side of the roof is the clear corrugated roofing panels to allow for all the natural light available to come in. It is properly supported with extra bracing to allow for snow fall weight. The other 1/2 of the roof is wood and asphalt shingles.

Hoping to be able to add a wall hanging feeder soon! Want to make it big enough for a 50-lb + bag of feed to go in at a time. And we're aiming to get a food grade barrel to gather rain run-off from the roof for a self-waterer inside the coop....

 

[Toshi]

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I LOVE how you have your coop set up, really liek the clear roofing panels!

 

[gale65]

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What is the clear thing over your feeder? We're planning to get one like that and I'm worried about them jumping up on it.

 

[LiLRedCV]

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It's a cover to a wild bird feeder... you can probably find one at a feed store or possibly even a store such as Walmart's. I got this one from Fred Meyers (a store similar to Walmart's.)

 

[LiLRedCV]

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Thank you!

I gleamed a lot of info from BYC to get this one built. Couldn't afford one of the pre-fabed coops that'd accommodate my ever-growing flock, so we looked around for affordable options. Found the shed kits at Home Depot and decided to convert it.

We built a coop last year (4'W x 8'L x 5' Tall) with plans purchased via eBay and used these panels instead of asphalt shingling too. Girls never missed a beat in laying all winter long - and we even had 24" of snow on the ground the week of Thanksgiving!! That coop worked for the flock I had at the time, but it's since grown considerably this past spring/summer! LOL I'm going to keep this coop as either my breeding pen (for when I want to make sure my Iowa Blue rooster breeds with the Iowa Blue hens vs getting a mutt mixture) and/or as a "hospital" if any of my girls get hurt (by a predator?) and need to be temporarily separated to heal properly.

2010 coop we built - exterior view only