My coop is just about done!

[tls_ranch]

Quote:
Here's a picture of it before we moved it to our new house and finished it. The upper level part is for roosting, feed and nest boxes. It's pretty secure for protection against predators if you lock the pop door and front access door. It has a wire floor for the droppings to fall through. I just rake them up out from under the coop. The wind/rain sheild will be a removable panel that we are going to add to cover the front wire window eventually.

The main gate (in the nearly finished pics) is on the side of the coop gives access to the covered part of run and wire run. It's 5-1/2 feet wide. The access door is on the front of the coop below the big screened window. The access door is for gathering eggs, feeding and interior cleaning.

I'll have to take a picture another day showing the inside. Pictures are so much better than me trying to explain the roost, feeder and nest boxes. I'll also try and show the automatic door when it's fixed.

The upper level area is 3-1/2 feet wide by 8 ft long and the covered "run in" area is 5-1/2 ft by 8 ft. So in total the whole covered area is 8ft x9 ft. The wire run is about 15 ft x 30ft.

 

[tls_ranch]

Quote:

You caught our joke! We sure do have coyotes around here! I'm looking for a similar looking metal chicken, I want to hang it like it was pecking the coyote's tail!

 

[crazy_4_chickens]

Nice job

 

[2txmedics]

Now I like this one!!! its pretty neat how you came up with the idea....but where did you get the idea? your head?....and what is the other part of the coop for ?.....and where is the opening?

 

[Chieftain]

Nice job! Very nice job!

Have you considered putting a gutter along the back and adding a couple of rainwater collection barrels?? It would give you a ready source of fresh water for the flock and would help keep things drier around your coop. You can put in an overflow pipe that leads excess water off any direction you choose.

I found white plastic 55 gallon food grade barrels here locally for $25 apiece, and I am putting at least 1 barrel on the back of the Chicken McMansion to collect and store some of the rainwater runoff from the roof. Last year I put 4 barrels on my shop, 2 for each side, and those 4 barrels got me through the summer for watering our small patio garden.

There is the top piece of a five gallon bucket cut into the top of one barrel, and I put a nylon paint filter over the top of it, and direct the downspout through it. That makes the barrels mosquito proof.

The white pipe at the bottom is the tap into the irrigation system for the garden along our fence. I grew a bunch of winter squash on a trellis last year and watered it exclusively with the rainbarrel water.

It takes about 2 days of steady rain to fill the barrels, and once they are full they overflow into the garden.

 

[tls_ranch]

Quote:
It just came to gether this way from sketches. The front section of the coop was the original design. It's safe and secure against predators and its where they roost, eat and lay eggs. But I knew the chickens would needed a larger covered area to hang out in during rainy weather or to shade up in. So, we added the "run in shelter" more than doubling the size of the covered space. If you look close you can see the pop door for the chickens to access the "shelter" and the rest of the run. And you can see the large gate on the right side for human access to the run.

It's been raining for days and the chickens have been hanging out on the makeshift roost (stumps + 2x4) to the left of the picture and scratching in the sand under the whole coop. I knew they wouldn't enjoy to be confined to the roosting part of the coop all day for days on end during bad weather.

The solar panel on the roof is to charge the battery for the automatic door...Once we fix the damage my son caused "working on it" LOL.

 

[Mahonri]

Great setup you have there!

 

[isabrownmom]

Love it! The only thing that would worry me is that the run fencing is spaced so that a coon could grab one of your chickens and wring its neck. Have you considered putting some smaller hardware cloth around the bottom 3 feet for extra protection? Other than that, I think its a great design! Have fun them!

 

[tls_ranch]

The chickens are only in the run during the day. A day light coon attack should be prevented by my 2 dogs. My dogs won't touch the chickens and they have free roam of the whole property. The part of the coop where they sleep is relatively coon proof. Unless a coon has the time is desperate enough to chew through 1x1/4 inch hardware cloth wire before my dogs get to them. If daylight coons, foxes or coyotes do become a problem I will add hotwire. I'm more worried about hawks, but the times we did see hawks the chickens ran under the coop and hid.

 

[jaboo81]

nice job!!