- May 4, 2013
- 1
- 0
- 7
My name is Matthew and I live in Wichita, KS. I got the chicken bug when my mom started having health problems and decided to go on a health food diet and I figured it would be cheaper and fun to raise our own eggs than to buy store bought ones. Mom disagreed because she was raised on the farm in Northwestern Kansas and remembered the mess of cleaning out grandma's chicken coop and being pecked by the hens when she had to collect eggs by reaching in under the hens as they sat in their nests. Therefore, she was not enthusiastic at all about my idea, but I went ahead and bought a book, read Mother Earth News articles on raising chickens in your backyard and found this site valuable when it came to coop design.
I had decided I wanted a lot of chickens so looked at the Midsized coops and was attracted to the look of the "Midlife Crisis" coop and reverse engineered how to build it (as well as making a few alterations). The coop I finished with was able to comfortably hold 12 regular chickens. Although I actually had as many as 24 youngin's in it at one point (don't tell the city) because a friend of mine decided he wanted a coop and got 8 chickens and my neighbor who got Bantam chickens the same year I got my original flock decided he wanted some regular chickens the second year but didn't have a place for the chicks apart from his adult bantys so I offered to house them in mine till they got old enough to fend for themselves against the adult bantams (and for my friend, until I got his chicken coop built which he hired me to do being impressed by mine).
The most noticeable differences between my coop and the Midlife Crisis coop featured on this site are the design and size of the run (mine was a large cube mostly independent of the coop rather than following the contours of the coop like the one featured here. My run is larger but not as nice looking.) The other is that mine is painted rather than sided, and lacks a chandelier (albeit it does have a heat lamp where the chandelier is) Also there are three side-by-side nest boxes rather than just two with an alcove between them. I also put a shelf in below the three nest boxes and made that entire side fold down on the outside rather than have three small doors to access the eggs. (It also allows me to store some things below the next boxes where the chickens can’t get to them). I also put in an electrical outlet in and used an adequately rated outdoor extension cord, cutting the female plug end off and attaching those wires to the outlet connectors inside the electrical outlet box and ran the cord out of the coop along the inside wall of one of the next boxes and down into the shelf area and out the bottom of the coop by the leg and into a hole I made into plastic gallon paint can that I mounted upside down on the front (big dual access door) side of the coop so I could run another electrical cord from the house out to the coop and connect them so the male-end of the coop’s extension cord and the cord ran from the house would be sheltered from rain/snow inside the paint can. This way when I needed electricity, I could have it and when I didn’t need it, I wouldn’t have to worry about it.
Instead of using the formal cupola and weather vain I just made a wood pyramid, left the center of the main pyramid roof uncovered (worked out ok because the 4’ wide plywood didn’t reach all the way to the top anyway) and screwed the pyramid on so there was a slight vent between the main pyramid roof and the smaller pyramid at the top, then glued a few layers of heavy duty aluminum foil to it to help protect it from the elements. I actually have yet to shingle the main pyramid part of the roof but I do have roof tar paper on there and that has prevented any leaks. I do not have windows and instead just have chicken wire around the inside and have used heavy duty cardboard to protect against cold weather (although to date I haven’t actually had any chickens in the winter months).
My first year of having chickens I used 2” x 4” fencing for the chicken run and discovered that a local opossum liked my chickens better than I did and got in through that and killed most of them then a stray dog found his way into the coop and took care of the rest. So I used 1” chicken wire over the 2” x 4” fencing I had used previously for the run, and made a wood frame that ran along the bottom of the coop with a small access door directly under the coop to prevent any unwanted intruders before getting my second group of chickens. I also hung 5 gallon galvanized waterer and feeder from half way up the diagonal sides of the roof so they were both inside the coop and ran a perch along the other diagonal between them. I mounted a smaller clip on heat lamp directly to the waterer and ran its cord up the wire to the roof and down the rafter to the electrical plug inside.
My second year, I got more chickens but ended up selling them to a couple of friends of mine when a neighbor decided to cause trouble in the neighborhood with us and several other people on the block and mom persuaded me to get rid of the chickens so tht they were one less thing the neighbor would have to cause trouble with so now I have a coop but no chickens. So far though, I have had Buff Brahma’s, White Brahmas, White Leghorns, New Hampshire Reds, Rhode Island Reds, Australorp, and two other breeds which I don’t remember what they were off hand. If I get to a place where I don’t have a troublesome neighbor to contend with then I will most probably get chickens again. The coop I made for my friend I based off of BirdsinBethel’s Coop in the Chicken tractor section and I intend to post pics and design changes I used from experience with my first coop so people can copy that if they wanted. I might do one with mine too, haven’t decided yet.
I had decided I wanted a lot of chickens so looked at the Midsized coops and was attracted to the look of the "Midlife Crisis" coop and reverse engineered how to build it (as well as making a few alterations). The coop I finished with was able to comfortably hold 12 regular chickens. Although I actually had as many as 24 youngin's in it at one point (don't tell the city) because a friend of mine decided he wanted a coop and got 8 chickens and my neighbor who got Bantam chickens the same year I got my original flock decided he wanted some regular chickens the second year but didn't have a place for the chicks apart from his adult bantys so I offered to house them in mine till they got old enough to fend for themselves against the adult bantams (and for my friend, until I got his chicken coop built which he hired me to do being impressed by mine).
The most noticeable differences between my coop and the Midlife Crisis coop featured on this site are the design and size of the run (mine was a large cube mostly independent of the coop rather than following the contours of the coop like the one featured here. My run is larger but not as nice looking.) The other is that mine is painted rather than sided, and lacks a chandelier (albeit it does have a heat lamp where the chandelier is) Also there are three side-by-side nest boxes rather than just two with an alcove between them. I also put a shelf in below the three nest boxes and made that entire side fold down on the outside rather than have three small doors to access the eggs. (It also allows me to store some things below the next boxes where the chickens can’t get to them). I also put in an electrical outlet in and used an adequately rated outdoor extension cord, cutting the female plug end off and attaching those wires to the outlet connectors inside the electrical outlet box and ran the cord out of the coop along the inside wall of one of the next boxes and down into the shelf area and out the bottom of the coop by the leg and into a hole I made into plastic gallon paint can that I mounted upside down on the front (big dual access door) side of the coop so I could run another electrical cord from the house out to the coop and connect them so the male-end of the coop’s extension cord and the cord ran from the house would be sheltered from rain/snow inside the paint can. This way when I needed electricity, I could have it and when I didn’t need it, I wouldn’t have to worry about it.
Instead of using the formal cupola and weather vain I just made a wood pyramid, left the center of the main pyramid roof uncovered (worked out ok because the 4’ wide plywood didn’t reach all the way to the top anyway) and screwed the pyramid on so there was a slight vent between the main pyramid roof and the smaller pyramid at the top, then glued a few layers of heavy duty aluminum foil to it to help protect it from the elements. I actually have yet to shingle the main pyramid part of the roof but I do have roof tar paper on there and that has prevented any leaks. I do not have windows and instead just have chicken wire around the inside and have used heavy duty cardboard to protect against cold weather (although to date I haven’t actually had any chickens in the winter months).
My first year of having chickens I used 2” x 4” fencing for the chicken run and discovered that a local opossum liked my chickens better than I did and got in through that and killed most of them then a stray dog found his way into the coop and took care of the rest. So I used 1” chicken wire over the 2” x 4” fencing I had used previously for the run, and made a wood frame that ran along the bottom of the coop with a small access door directly under the coop to prevent any unwanted intruders before getting my second group of chickens. I also hung 5 gallon galvanized waterer and feeder from half way up the diagonal sides of the roof so they were both inside the coop and ran a perch along the other diagonal between them. I mounted a smaller clip on heat lamp directly to the waterer and ran its cord up the wire to the roof and down the rafter to the electrical plug inside.
My second year, I got more chickens but ended up selling them to a couple of friends of mine when a neighbor decided to cause trouble in the neighborhood with us and several other people on the block and mom persuaded me to get rid of the chickens so tht they were one less thing the neighbor would have to cause trouble with so now I have a coop but no chickens. So far though, I have had Buff Brahma’s, White Brahmas, White Leghorns, New Hampshire Reds, Rhode Island Reds, Australorp, and two other breeds which I don’t remember what they were off hand. If I get to a place where I don’t have a troublesome neighbor to contend with then I will most probably get chickens again. The coop I made for my friend I based off of BirdsinBethel’s Coop in the Chicken tractor section and I intend to post pics and design changes I used from experience with my first coop so people can copy that if they wanted. I might do one with mine too, haven’t decided yet.
Last edited:
