Just Completed Our New Chicken Coop

[urbanutah]

I spent a fair amount of time browsing BYC's website, Pinterest & YouTube looking at a wide variety of chicken coop designs. I then looked at pre-fab coops (too expensive). After marinating in the borage of design concepts I'd seen, I designed our coop and enlisted the help of my husband and neighbor to help bring my design to life. We are VERY new to raising backyard chickens. We adopted 4 adult laying hens from a client of mine this past March. It was still cold and snowy so we ran to our local feed store and bought what was basically a balsa wood (step above cardboard) temporary coop that said it was for 4 hens (it did not comfortably accommodate all 4, which immediately led to dissention among the ranks and the sweetest one was banished to the run by her mean step-sisters). So after a couple months of planning and about 4 weeks of prep & build time, here is our beautiful urban chicken coop. The ladies are oh-so-happy with their new abode. My mom aptly


named it "The Coop de Gras."

 

[aart]

It looks well built and certainly is attractive...love the brown and black.
More pics coming of inside?
Curious, what is your climate?

Welcome to BYC!

 

[urbanutah]

I do plan to post some pics of the inside in the next day or two. It was imperative to have two windows for cross ventilation plus eave vents since we live in the Salt Lake City area and it can get pretty hot in July. When we ran the power to the coop we added two outlets, one for the automatic door and one on the coop ceiling to accommodate a small clip-on fan for summer and to add a ceramic warmer for winter since we get cold weather (in the teens) and snow. We also insulated under the floor of the coop, walls and ceiling with 1" foam board sheeting and covered that with quarter-inch plywood to keep the hens from pecking at it.

 

[urbanutah]

We had a 30 year old fence that we replaced behind where the coop was placed. We used those old wood fence planks for the siding on the coop .

 

[Cheep N Peep]

Oh my gosh! Your coop is absolutely stunning... I want it. Me. Mine. Drool.

I love it! Thank your husband and your neighbor, they did an amazing job helping you. Definitely post more pictures!

 

[aart]

I do plan to post some pics of the inside in the next day or two. It was imperative to have two windows for cross ventilation plus eave vents since we live in the Salt Lake City area and it can get pretty hot in July. When we ran the power to the coop we added two outlets, one for the automatic door and one on the coop ceiling to accommodate a small clip-on fan for summer and to add a ceramic warmer for winter since we get cold weather (in the teens) and snow. We also insulated under the floor of the coop, walls and ceiling with 1" foam board sheeting and covered that with quarter-inch plywood to keep the hens from pecking at it.

Look forward to seeing more when you get the chance.

You won't need heat, seriously, you won't (F teens are nothing).....but you will need something to keep their water liquid so the extra outlet will be good.
You will need winter ventilation, you're wide roof overhang in conjunction with open eaves should do well in that respect.

 

[urbanutah]

Thank you for the gushing coop love!

It turned out better than we expected. I wanted the girls to have ample space underneath for a cool, shady dust-bathing area and added the lower swing door (the handle on the bottom of the swing door attaches to a long reach hook up on the main coop door so it stays up and out of the way) for easy access and cleaning. The bonus of having the coop be a bit taller is that I don't have to bend down to clean the floor of the coop since it sits 30" above ground level.

 

[Howard E]

Normally I would have a lot of comments on ways to improve a new coop. Not this time, so this is a first. I'm speechless.

 

[urbanutah]

Additional pics:






Still need to finish painting the front eaves and our tree-trimmer friend is looking for some more suitable branches that we can use for roosting bars, the one currently in the coop is temporary.

 

[Athaid]

Really awesome looking coop, I love the colour scheme.