Must have features for your coop

[ebeagle35]

My husband and i are planning to build and finalize our coop plans in the next day or so. We are planning on using rough cut lumber to cut down on cost.
We have 23 chickens total, 15 are two week old chicks. Our current coop can hold 12.

I am curious to know what are your must have features. What can you not go without when it comes to your coop?

Because we have so many birds i would like clean up to be easy and have a plan for a method that I hope will be fairly inexpensive.

We are also planning on building a chicken jail so that we can integrate new chicks fairly easily. This will also aid us in working with broody hens.

 

[Judy]

I'd say the most essential item is a well laid out ventilation system.

For "can do without," I'd start with built in nest boxes. Instead, use cardboard boxes and toss when soiled, or plastic bins -- can be milk crate type things, but I esp. like a rectangular style with a dip on one long side as it makes a great communal nest as well as broody/new mama nest. Chickens will change around which is their favorite nest, and having more than one type adds variety and enrichment to their life. IMO, exterior opening nests are particularly useless, because you will miss some eggs if you don't check inside, and maybe some other problem as well. There is also no particular reason to have a separate chicken door unless you just want to.

Thick branches make great roosts and can be changed out if too soiled or when cleaning for a mite/lice infestation.

 

[Ridgerunner]

The must-haves are the basics; protection from the environment, protection from predators, good ventilation, draft protection, pop door, people door for your size coop, roosts and nests. I feed and water in the coop as well as in the run, not everybody does. Knowing more about how you are going to manage your chickens might spark some ideas, things like will broody hens raise chicks with the flock or will you be brooding chicks yourself.

I built my brooder into the coop. It’s 3’ x 6’. The chicks go into it straight from the incubator. I wish I’d made it 8’ long instead so it would stretch all the way across that wall since I use the top as a droppings board. That’s a big recommendation, put in a droppings board to help you manage the poop load in there. I scrape mine anywhere from once a week to once every three weeks, depending on how many chickens I have in here and how wet the weather is. If it is wet and the air humid or I have more chickens I have to do it more often. With dry weather and fewer chickens, not so often. You’ll find your own schedule. It’s not part of the coop but I recommend a compost pile to give you a place to get rid of that poop.

That brooder also serves as a broody buster or a place to isolate an injured chicken. When it is empty I often put mice snap traps in there to help control the mice population.

I see you have some younger chicks so you will be integrating them with the flock. One of the places I see the adults most brutal to younger chicks when integrating, whether I raised them in a brooder or if a broody raised them with the flock and then weaned them, is on the roosts. Often that brutality is bad enough that the chicks look for a safer place to sleep. That can be your nests. That is such a regular occurrence for me that I put in an extra roost, higher than the nests but lower than the main roosts, and horizontally separated from the main roosts to give them a safe place to go other than the nests. That has saved me a whole lot of problems. That extra “juvenile roost” is over my nests and the top of the nests become dropping boards. Don’t get hung up on how many linear inches of roost space you need, you will get recommendations from 8” to well over a foot per bird, but think more of how the weak can get away from the bullies since it sounds like you will be integrating.

I don’t separate my broody hens from the flock, but if you do a place set up for that in the coop is a good idea. My brooder has a wire bottom so it can work as a broody buster, but if you are wanting a hen to hatch you don’t want to cool off her undersides. So two separate areas where you can put chickens, one with a wire bottom and one without. These don’t both have to be in the coop but the coop is predator proof. You don’t have to worry about that if they are in a safe place. One of these can be set up so you can house chicks before integration too, after they are out of the brooder. Two areas gives you a lot more flexibility. You might have chicks in a brooder, a broody hatching eggs, an injured chicken that needs isolation, and a broody you want to bust at the same time. These are not very likely to happen at the same time but two separate places gives you a lot more flexibility than just one. My “second place” is a separate coop at the other end of the run, not in the main coop itself, but with a connection to the run plus an internal fence I can isolate a part of the run with that second coop. I also have a large area enclosed in electric netting with a third isolation place out there. It is not used much but is occasionally has been quite handy.

I made a couple of my nests so I could lock a chicken in there if I want to. That has come in handy a few times. It’s a great place to temporarily stash a chicken for whatever reason or put the chicks while you are working in the brooder. When I’m trying to figure out which pullet or hen is laying which egg, I might lock them in there with no other eggs so I can see what she is laying when I catch her on the nest. When I have a hen laying on the coop floor, when I catch her on her nest in the floor I lock her in the real nest until she lays her egg. I normally only have to do this once (on occasion twice) to retrain her to lay in a nest instead of on the floor.

Another feature I find real useful is that I did not make my main coop as small as I could so I could shoehorn chickens in there. I made it larger than I needed. That made it a lot easier on me to manage and work in there. That’s not so much for the chickens’ benefit though they do get benefits, but to make my life less stressful. All the other things above make it a lot more flexible for me when I have problems to manage, but they would be impossible without extra room. Extra room in the run is really handy too.

I recommend a separate area for storage. That’s not just for feed but for all the other stuff you get for them. That’s extra feeders and waterers for my brooder or for an isolated chicken, heat for the brooder when needed, stuff to treat the chickens when they need it, my mouse snap traps and my other live traps, extra golf balls for fake eggs, just all the stuff you collect.

I also ran electricity and water to the coop. I used a frost free spigot which is real handy, not just for watering the chickens but to wash things as well as irrigating my fruit trees in that area. With the electricity I have lights at night, can heat the chicks in the brooder, and have an outlet for my power tools.

Others will manage their chickens differently, have different set-ups, and have different flock make-ups. A lot of what I have would be wasted on someone keeping four or six hens in a small backyard coop and run and never integrating. We are all unique. My main suggestions are to provide adequate space instead of designing for the absolute minimum, build in as much flexibility into it as you can, and be flexible yourself. Things seldom work out exactly as planned but it is a fun journey.

 

[Mahlzeit]

I'd say the most essential item is a well laid out ventilation system.

For "can do without," I'd start with built in nest boxes. Instead, use cardboard boxes and toss when soiled, or plastic bins -- can be milk crate type things, but I esp. like a rectangular style with a dip on one long side as it makes a great communal nest as well as broody/new mama nest. Chickens will change around which is their favorite nest, and having more than one type adds variety and enrichment to their life. IMO, exterior opening nests are particularly useless, because you will miss some eggs if you don't check inside, and maybe some other problem as well. There is also no particular reason to have a separate chicken door unless you just want to.

Thick branches make great roosts and can be changed out if too soiled or when cleaning for a mite/lice infestation.

Exterior opening nest boxes are useless? I just finished building a coop and my favorite part of the whole coop besides the poop board is the exterior opening nest boxes. For years I had to go inside the coop to collect the eggs. It is way more convenient to not have to put on my boots or "chicken shoes" and go inside the house to collect eggs. If I am running late for something and I am in nice clothes I can run out there lift the door and grab the eggs no hassle. About eggs laid elsewhere all it takes is a quick peek in the door to double check. So far I have yet to have an egg laid elsewhere.

 

[Blooie]

A couple of nails. Yep, that's one of the things I count on in my coop/run and use the most. Long ones, driven into a couple of studs. And a wide putty knife. Hang the putty knife on one of the nails. It's invaluable for scraping a bit of doo-doo off the roosts and if it's on a nail right near the roosts you never have to look for it. The other nail is to hang a rake. Those are my two main coop tools, and they are always out of the way but instantly accessible.

Sometimes it's the little afterthoughts that we end up relying on the most!

 

[aart]

Quote:
My favorite parts too!

 

[Ridgerunner]

Ebeagle35, you’ll see that some of this stuff is personal preference and some will depend on how you manage your chickens or your set-up. Those differences of opinions on exterior opening nests are a great example. If you have a small coop where you can’t walk in you may not have any other realistic options. If there is something about your management style or set-up it can work out great. Say you have someone afraid of the chickens or someone that normally collects eggs can’t physically get into the coop. If you often check for eggs wearing your good clothes, you may not want to walk into the coop. There are all kinds of legitimate reasons where exterior opening nests could be the right choice for you.

I built a couple of my nests with exterior openings but I never use them. They were a waste of time and hardware for me. It’s just so much easier for me to step into the coop. Those openings are low so I would have to stoop to fiddle with the latch to unlock them. By walking in the coop I can see how things are going. I’ve found dead hens, a possum once, and a few snakes by walking in. I can see if I need to take care of something, anything from feed or water to some repair.

Where my coop is located, I never wear my good shoes down there. Part of that is biosecurity, I don’t want to track in something I may have picked up at the feed store or somewhere else. But the big part is that I don’t want to get my good shoes messed up, either in the mud on the way to the coop or inside the coop or run itself. The only time I wear my good shoes is when I’m going into town and I normally change into better clothes them too. I don’t wear them walking around here.

If you do build exterior opening nests I suggest you put them at a level convenient to open and fix the opening so you can see into the nest before you open it too wide or blindly have to stick your hand in the nest. Use hardware that is easy to manipulate. It’s possible a chicken may be on that nest and may startle out where you ae so you are chasing it in your good shoes. But the main reason is that I’ve found things in nests I would not want to touch blindly, like a snake. Do I need to mention anything else?

Your management techniques, goals, set-up, flock make-up, and even personal preference will play a big part in which of these tips might be useful for you. It’s up to you to sort out which might apply to you.

 

[aart]

My 'exterior to coop' nest access is in the shed....so no weather proofing worries and entire coop is visible for problems.
Access door to nests is in back....oh and the 2 people doors and temporary partition wall was a must have that really worked out well.