Cody, LindaB, and others, here's some shots of my coop and pen. It's obvious that I'm not finished with the coop with lumber and metal sheeting lying around. I built it with both safety, convenience and possibly expanding the flock in mind. So right now, my 8 RIR have it pretty good. Building the coop totally interrupted my work in the garden, so nature took over and it went to weeds, BIG WEEDS!. It's obvious the soil is very fertile. Now, it's turn about fair play. The coop is far enough along to keep the girls safe and dry, so back to planting a fall garden.
I'm very fortunate to have a wooded tree line to the north to somewhat isolate them from a number of houses nearby. And, there's a nice, dense clump of trees immediately to the left of the coop that I've incorporated in the pen. Also, while our lot slopes toward that area, and rainwater moves through that area, the coop is on a little elevated area that was already there. Otherwise, I would have had to have elevated some myself. As mentioned in previous posts - the girls love the tree area and spend most of their time there. It will be interesting to see if they are out in the grassy area more as winter comes on. The coop and pen are at the back of our 8+ acres, so they are pretty much hidden from the road, and I like that too.
Here's an approach to the pen. The nice clump of trees is to the left, and beyond the trees to the right is a neighborhood with quite a few houses. (Civilization approaches!!)
Looking out of the pen toward our house and road beyond. The fence and the gate are electrified. I haven't yet run power out to this area, so am using a charger that can run on AC or DC. I have a car battery in the box to the right of the gate. My buddy Max is patiently waiting for me to finish taking pictures.
The front of coop with a man and a chicken door. The chicken door is open, but is closed at nights. This wall is completely covered with hardware cloth, which is doubled in the bottom two feet. The roof extends out toward me from that wall to help keep rain from blowing inside, and to give the girls a sheltered area without having to go back inside the coop. There are two barrel latches on both doors. Also, with high winds in mind (South Louisiana), I've sloped the roof toward the south to hopefully deflect some of the uplifting. Maybe the trees will help too. I've used a number of metal straps to reinforce the wood-to-wood connections, and used screws to attach the sheet metal for the roof. Yes, I've kinda gone to the extreme. But just too much time, money and energy is invested to not add little features that improve security and stability. I want my Chicken TV to run uninterrupted well after I'm gone.
In the picture below, looking through the man door, the roost is made from limbs and small trees. I tried to keep the diameter of the top two rungs to about 2", which seems to be the general guideline I've found on the web. You can see a gap between the roof and the wall. This gap runs all the way around to add to the ventilation of the coop. Where the gap is large enough to admit an owl, I've covered it with hardware cloth. On the floor you can see the "deep littler" composed of leaves from bags folks had put out next to the street for pickup. I first learned of this method in Ussery's book. The floor below is dirt, which allows a little moisture and many microorganism's and worms to move up into this material. He and others strongly emphasize the need for much ventilation so as to aid the natural process going on in the littler. So, the hardware covered wall, combined with the gaps up near the roof provide plenty of ventilation. Because of the moisture and natural acid content of the litter, I attached the blue tarp material apron around the inside bottom of the walls to help protect the metal sheeting. While the girls are waiting for me to let them out in the morning, they stay busy scratching around in the littler, which keeps the material stirred up letting plenty of air circulate through it. This method seems to be working very well, there is almost no smell of manure inside the coop.
Continuing with the idea of plenty of ventilation, the peak of the roof is about 12 ft. The heat coming off the metal roof is pretty intense in summer, and even though I try to let the girls out into the pen early in the morning, there will be times that I will have to leave them inside all day. Also, having the peak of the roof that high allows for a clearance on the lower (left) side that is easy to walk under. I can remember from childhood when there was a surge in folks near my grandparent's house around Provencal, LA that decided to raise large flocks of chickens for commercial purposes. The long, narrow metal houses for the chickens had roofs too low, and the coops had few if any fans. It didn't take them long to discover that their low investment, high pay-off plans got cooked, literally! I can remember the sheds sitting there slowly deteriorating long after the chickens were gone. As LindaB said earlier, "heat kills a lot more easily than cold".
Looking to the left inside the coop, you can see my auto waterer. A handy little device that I ordered off the web that refills itself as water becomes low in the bowl. The time it took to run water all of the way out the coop is really paying off...a constant, reliable supply of fresh water every day, without me having to attend to this except to occasionally rinse out the bowl. Beyond the waterer you can see the entrance to 4 nest boxes. I have a board blocking them right now because I recently painted them, and so I haven't added nesting material. The girls are 17 weeks old, so things should be ready there when they are.
Last shot of the coop - you can see the nest boxes projecting out into a covered area where we can gather eggs without standing in the rain or having to go inside the coop. There's a lid giving top access to the boxes. You can barely see a second autowaterer I have outside so the girls don't have to go back inside the coop to get a drink. At the very back this side area I plan on putting a wall creating a small storage area for food and other supplies.
Here's my happy girls using my bench for a little morning break.
They provide so much entertainment to me, all of that above was well worth the effort and money. We don't take long vacations, don't have expensive jewelry. We just enjoy our large family, especially our many grandkids, and we watch chicken TV. But then, I'm preaching the to choir here, huh?
Cody, I sure hope you get some ideas you can use from this posting.
Raymond
I'm very fortunate to have a wooded tree line to the north to somewhat isolate them from a number of houses nearby. And, there's a nice, dense clump of trees immediately to the left of the coop that I've incorporated in the pen. Also, while our lot slopes toward that area, and rainwater moves through that area, the coop is on a little elevated area that was already there. Otherwise, I would have had to have elevated some myself. As mentioned in previous posts - the girls love the tree area and spend most of their time there. It will be interesting to see if they are out in the grassy area more as winter comes on. The coop and pen are at the back of our 8+ acres, so they are pretty much hidden from the road, and I like that too.
Here's an approach to the pen. The nice clump of trees is to the left, and beyond the trees to the right is a neighborhood with quite a few houses. (Civilization approaches!!)
Looking out of the pen toward our house and road beyond. The fence and the gate are electrified. I haven't yet run power out to this area, so am using a charger that can run on AC or DC. I have a car battery in the box to the right of the gate. My buddy Max is patiently waiting for me to finish taking pictures.
The front of coop with a man and a chicken door. The chicken door is open, but is closed at nights. This wall is completely covered with hardware cloth, which is doubled in the bottom two feet. The roof extends out toward me from that wall to help keep rain from blowing inside, and to give the girls a sheltered area without having to go back inside the coop. There are two barrel latches on both doors. Also, with high winds in mind (South Louisiana), I've sloped the roof toward the south to hopefully deflect some of the uplifting. Maybe the trees will help too. I've used a number of metal straps to reinforce the wood-to-wood connections, and used screws to attach the sheet metal for the roof. Yes, I've kinda gone to the extreme. But just too much time, money and energy is invested to not add little features that improve security and stability. I want my Chicken TV to run uninterrupted well after I'm gone.
In the picture below, looking through the man door, the roost is made from limbs and small trees. I tried to keep the diameter of the top two rungs to about 2", which seems to be the general guideline I've found on the web. You can see a gap between the roof and the wall. This gap runs all the way around to add to the ventilation of the coop. Where the gap is large enough to admit an owl, I've covered it with hardware cloth. On the floor you can see the "deep littler" composed of leaves from bags folks had put out next to the street for pickup. I first learned of this method in Ussery's book. The floor below is dirt, which allows a little moisture and many microorganism's and worms to move up into this material. He and others strongly emphasize the need for much ventilation so as to aid the natural process going on in the littler. So, the hardware covered wall, combined with the gaps up near the roof provide plenty of ventilation. Because of the moisture and natural acid content of the litter, I attached the blue tarp material apron around the inside bottom of the walls to help protect the metal sheeting. While the girls are waiting for me to let them out in the morning, they stay busy scratching around in the littler, which keeps the material stirred up letting plenty of air circulate through it. This method seems to be working very well, there is almost no smell of manure inside the coop.
Continuing with the idea of plenty of ventilation, the peak of the roof is about 12 ft. The heat coming off the metal roof is pretty intense in summer, and even though I try to let the girls out into the pen early in the morning, there will be times that I will have to leave them inside all day. Also, having the peak of the roof that high allows for a clearance on the lower (left) side that is easy to walk under. I can remember from childhood when there was a surge in folks near my grandparent's house around Provencal, LA that decided to raise large flocks of chickens for commercial purposes. The long, narrow metal houses for the chickens had roofs too low, and the coops had few if any fans. It didn't take them long to discover that their low investment, high pay-off plans got cooked, literally! I can remember the sheds sitting there slowly deteriorating long after the chickens were gone. As LindaB said earlier, "heat kills a lot more easily than cold".
Looking to the left inside the coop, you can see my auto waterer. A handy little device that I ordered off the web that refills itself as water becomes low in the bowl. The time it took to run water all of the way out the coop is really paying off...a constant, reliable supply of fresh water every day, without me having to attend to this except to occasionally rinse out the bowl. Beyond the waterer you can see the entrance to 4 nest boxes. I have a board blocking them right now because I recently painted them, and so I haven't added nesting material. The girls are 17 weeks old, so things should be ready there when they are.
Last shot of the coop - you can see the nest boxes projecting out into a covered area where we can gather eggs without standing in the rain or having to go inside the coop. There's a lid giving top access to the boxes. You can barely see a second autowaterer I have outside so the girls don't have to go back inside the coop to get a drink. At the very back this side area I plan on putting a wall creating a small storage area for food and other supplies.
Here's my happy girls using my bench for a little morning break.
Cody, I sure hope you get some ideas you can use from this posting.
Raymond
