My Favorite Chicken House Ever!

[BlueHorse17]

Welcome! Your chicken house is beautiful!

 

[Outta Here]

Thanks! It's super easy to clean--I do the 5 minute job barefoot in my jammies before coffee! I wake them with the light, open the lid and pet them on their roost before they hop down and go to the outside run. Then without going into the pen, I just lean over the half wall and rake the poop into a pile and wipe the roosts clean with a wet rag. I only open the half door and go in to dustpan the raked pile onto the screen and carry it out.

At only 31" wide and 13' long, there are two downsides of the design of this narrow a "nighttime" coop. I would have built it wider but didn't want to move the bathroom door. One, the roost has to be lower (23") because they don't have enough "flying" room to get down without brushing their wings on the wall. Two, the overnight poop absolutely must be raked out every morning because the chickens are basically walking under the roost when there are in there. They are never confined to this small interior coop--they can come and go into the much larger exterior coop anytime, and they free range all day. It's a very easy and quick job, but finding someone to come early to do it when I want to vacation might be hard.


p.s. My husband built me a screened dog pooper scooper that I use to do a quick pickup before their bedtime. I don't have to enter the pen at all! I posted about it here: https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/super-pooper-sand-scooper.1488171/#post-24818231

p.p.s I have since built portable mini-roosts that I place on the nest box shelf every night. https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/removable-mini-roost-for-shelf.1486252/#post-24774098

 

[Grandmas Coop]