My 6x10 Woods Coop

[brendave]

My DH surprised me for my birthday last April with a chicken coop bought from Sam's Club and an order for 3 chicks from a hatchery. I have always wanted chickens but I until recently, couldn't have them. We had moved from a neighborhood that didn't allow chickens to 5 acres and I had talked about getting a few. Neither of us knew anything about raising and caring for chickens so I joined BackYardChickens! I made a Mama Heating Pad for my 5 chicks (we ended up with 2 extra) and set up my little coop in the back of our yard.

5 weeks later we realized that the tiny Sam's Club coop was not going to hold our pullets. I started researching coops here and found these threads: thread:https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/woods-style-house-in-the-winter.445004/
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/woods-colony-house-portable.1104954/
https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...-house-aka-woods-coop-in-minneapolis.1144881/

I read the book about Wood's coops and decided that this was the coop for us. What really appealed to me was the possible off grid application. Here's my coop this from this past February. I'm planning on painting it and building a predator proof run.

 

[brendave]

I was going to do a build thread but the third day of my build, my 89 year old dad fell and severely injured his arm. He spent 6 weeks in and out of the hospital. Between working, rushing him back and forth to the hospital, and sitting at his bedside, I was also trying to get my coop built. My pullets were already pecking at each other from the stress of being stuck in a tiny coop so time was of the essence!

I chose the site because it faced southeast and would receive sun during most of the day in the winter. It's in a corner of my garden which allows me ease of access to the compost pile for my deep litter. I dug and leveled the ground for the foundation and laid concrete blocks that I bought from our local home improvement store on top of hardware cloth. On top of the blocks I placed pressure treated lumbar for my base. I decided to keep the floor dirt and use the DLM.

I drew out the plans on graph paper based on the Woods Book so I could accurately calculate how much lumbar I needed. I modified the design a little to account for current lumber dimensions. I also added a small overhang on the sides. There is a picture below of the "ladder" that extends the roof overhang. I also decided to make the coop modular for ease of construction and in case we needed to move it so the walls and roof were originally designed as separate units. I constructed the walls in the garage and carried them to the site. I had to modify the design because the roof was too heavy to lift into place so it was built on site.

The windows, hardware, and door were bought at my local ReStore. I remember the total cost for everything was less than $20. Lumber was approx $400. I got the shingles and siding from the reject piles at our local home improvement center for a little under $100. Drip edge and tar paper were bought there too but I don't remember the cost.

Here are the pictures I did remember to take:

My DH travels for work so he was gone most of the summer. He helped when he could.

Hardware cloth was stapled on the outside of the framing to predator proof the openings. This was covered with the siding.

Rebuild of the door wall because I forgot to include the door framing!.

This is a cheap interior dutch door that I cut down to fit the smaller opening. It came with the hardware.

How to hold heavy siding in place when it's only you? Blocks screwed into the sill plate held the siding in place while I nailed the siding on.

Huge mistake below! I forgot to include the door framing in this wall. All the studs were misaligned too. I braced the roof, moved the studs, and rehung the door. There's another picture above where you can see I have moved the studs. This is a good picture of the overhang ladder though!

I moved the ladies in as soon as I could. I eventually placed a log about 36" high for a roost.

I'll take some pictures this weekend of the windows and interior and post later.

 

[Pennys Mama]

I love that design, makes me think of an old time western storefront. We always use the "fix your design flaws along the way" method. If I waited on perfect plans in order to build I'd never get to build anything.

 

[Folly's place]

Beautiful! I'm so impressed!!! Woods coops are wonderful, wish I had one!
I would consider swapping out that door knob for an actual locking door knob. Mine are also from the Restore, very cheap, but more raccoon proof. My dogs can open those conventional knobs too.
Also against large dogs and bears, 2"x4" woven wire over the lower openings' hardware cloth.
Such good work, wonderful.
Mary

 

[Meg-in-MT]

Wow, you did a lovely job! Can't wait to see when it's painted. Kudos to you and your ability to figure out how to do things on your own. You should be proud

 

[Ted Brown]

@brendave first time I have seen this, excellent job!

I built a 10' by 16', very happy with it.

 

[Aunt Tat]

Oh My Goodness! Reminds me of the mid-century shed room home my folks built!!!
This is really nice and I love the diagonal perch as well as the Dutch Door!


I do have a question: About the 6th picture from the bottom, what's that tubular thing that looks like a heavy-rubber with rounded squares in it???? I LOOKS important!

Again....a WONDERFUL coop! Your laidies are VERY fortunate!

 

[Acre4Me]

Oh My Goodness! Reminds me of the mid-century shed room home my folks built!!!
This is really nice and I love the diagonal perch as well as the Dutch Door!


I do have a question: About the 6th picture from the bottom, what's that tubular thing that looks like a heavy-rubber with rounded squares in it???? I LOOKS important!

Again....a WONDERFUL coop! Your laidies are VERY fortunate!

The black tubular thing looks like a water bottle with a black rubber sleeve. OP hadn’t been in for a few months.

 

[peeper89]

i like this!

 

[pennyJo1960]

Great article and build very well put together ..
Thank you for posting it !