Is this coop too small for a droppings board?

[Sammamish-BYCs]

Well, the photo I posted is of the run. My husband wants to put the coop inside it to make the job easier, but I'm hoping to connect the coop to it on the right side. I'm disappointed to hear from several people that we still need more space, even when they'll have the run to go to. My husband just picked up the cabinet because it was free at a reuse store since it reeked with cat urine. We fixed that with a couple coats of primer and thought it was big enough. All the materials were purchased at the reuse store including the vents. What other type of vents could be used? My husband considered buying a reused shutter blind, but wind and rain might get through that, too.

 

[Sammamish-BYCs]

Yes, this is the run. He thought it would make the set up easier.

 

[enola]

This run, with the cabinet/brooder/coop inside of it is big enough for two chickens. The smaller the chickens the better off they will be.

 

[Cheep N Peep]

I think the rain will get in not because of bad vents, but because there is no roof overhang to protect them from rain. A roof over can can protect a certain amount of the side the coop during a storm, and keep rain from dripping down the wall and into the coop through the ventilation. If you look at my coop on my coop page, you will see that the holes at the top of the coop are protected by roof overhang, and farther down the vents are protected by the way they are built; shutter style.
I like your cabinet coop, but it is to small for four full grown (or adolescent) hens... especially with the feeder, waterer and ramp eating up floor space. If you put the coop inside of the run, (where the birds can easily walk under the coop) and where the coop is protected from rain, you could easily screw another cabinet to the coop's side and cut out the touching walls... bam, a bigger coop with a longer roost, and feeders under neath the coop and out of the way. They don't need the ramp, but if you want you can still build a step up by putting a 2"x4" 'limb' out from the wall.
Does that make sense? Sometimes I write what I'm thinking and it doesn't translate. My coop is under my name.

 

[appps]

Plus you need to have a nesting box as well, there is no provision for one of those yet and nowhere near room for one in that little coop.

We used a two door bathroom vanity cupboard as a temporary home for four 11 week old chicks. Fully grown we could get two in there but it would not be a nice place for them and they wouldn't really manage to roost because of nose to tail length being too wide for the cupboard. It isn't waterproof chipboard either so the 2-3 months it was outside but with a piece of roofing over it already started to swell up from moisture in the chip board.

I would be tempted to build something up off the ground inside your run sort of like turning it into two stories inside, so that you don't loose any of your ground space to it by letting them still wander below it. You are really at bare minimum looking on run alone without the house in there. You are going to want a house and nest box that is at least 1/4 of the size of that run (so half the top half if that makes sense). Also it's nice to be able to get the eggs from the outside so external access to the nest box if you can as nothing worse than having to tramp into a muddy run to get eggs in winter

 

[junebuggena]

That coop is way too crowded. The reason they need the ramp to get up on the roost is because they don't even have enough room to stretch their wings and jump, it's not because the roost is too high. My ten pound rooster can easily clear 4 feet.
Honestly, when it comes to housing chickens, the mind set needs to be "how much space can I give them", not "how many can I cram in 'x amount' of space."
Overcrowding stress is serious. And once behaviors that are caused by overcrowding stress (feather picking) begin, they can be very, very difficult to stop, even once the flock has plenty of room.

 

[TalkALittle]

Your run looks beautiful. And what a pretty setting with your picket fence and the pines in the back.

You are in the Pacific NW, correct? If you plan on using your cabinet coop outside, I'd definitely put it in the run. I can't imagine an interior grade cabinet would fare too well after a couple rainy seasons even with a good primer and paint. The good thing is that it is up on legs, so your birds will still have the entire square footage of the run to use.

I do agree that it is too small though. Even with everything cleared out, it will give you problems. No room for a poop board is really the least of your worries. You don't even have enough space for your birds and will have bigger problems than keeping up with the cleaning. But since you asked about poop boards, I'll offer my thoughts. Frankly, an adequate sized poop board is going to take up the whole coop. My board is 24" deep and my birds still sometimes manage to poop over the edge. If you want to keep 4 birds I'd seriously think about revising your housing plan. If you don't have the option of creating more co-op space then I'd rehome two birds. Then I'd treat the whole cabinet coop as a poop board and fill it with Sweet PDZ or Stall Dry so you could scoop the poop out daily.

The saving grace in your situation is that your run is nicely covered. Even in bad weather your birds will have a way to stay dry. If not for that, there would be no point in even considering keeping the cabinet coop, even if you only kept two birds in it.

Your run is very nicely built. If you don't want to increase its footprint and don't want a coop off the side of it, consider this idea. Enclose the back 1/3 of the run into an elevated coop that spans the entire width. You could make it accessible from the outside for cleaning and egg gathering. The area underneath would be accessible to the birds, maintaining maximum square footage in the run. If you made it 3 feet deep and the width is 6.5 feet that gives you 19.5 square feet. That's plenty of room for your 4 hens. The high peak offers plenty of ventilation options high above the birds' heads. Place vents on the wall facing into the run and they'll be sheltered from blowing wind and rain. Then keep the cabinet coop as a little "Hospital coop" if you ever have a sick or injured bird.

 

[donrae]

I agree your coop is too small, but feel you may have chicken math subtraction in your future. The bird in the doorway in the second pic you posted looks like a cockerel to me. If you get a better pic of that bird we can confirm.

 

[Sammamish-BYCs]

Well, we were able to finish our run and put the coop inside it to stay out of the weather for now. We realize it's temporary until we decide what else to do for a coop. We will most likely build something that attaches to the run or is elevated inside it. We want to have access to the nest box outside the run, so that will be part of the plan. I posted another thread about my easter egger cockerel. It's really obvious now that it's a male and we plan to find him a new home. I already have the number of a woman who takes cockerels about 45 min from me. She says she free ranges over 1000 chickens. That will reduce my number to 3 birds.
Also, I took out everything in the coop, including the ramp, which is being used as a temporary access to the coop. I know I need a wider and longer one for the height of the coop. We now have food and water outside the coop in the run with the pop door removed so they can get in and out whenever they want to. We currently have the nest box closed off from the coop with cardboard. The lid on the outside allows easy access. Also, we added cedar fence boards to 3 exterior sides of the coop for extra weather protection, but we agree that it's really not that weather proof. We had to finish this project so we could leave town to visit family for Christmas. My birds are in good hands with a neighborhood friend who owns chickens, too.

 

[rides2far]

That turned out really nice. I'm sure your chickies are very happy now