Broxi
Songster
After much thought I decided to build a walk in coop. The enclosed henhouse area was divided for storage with a walk door to access the henhouse and collect eggs. It is built as a platform with the floor being OSB covered with sheet vinyl and wire meshed all around the bottom extending 24" out on all sides. I also built it against the existing shed that we already had and has one continuous roof over the whole thing. You can't even see the shed in my picture of it LOL My land falls away from the existing shed and that's why we built the platform as a one step into the coop on one side and it increases in height to approximately 2' on the run side and the chickens have access there. I left it open thinking that when I incorporate new members of the flock they will have a bit of protection from the older hens to hide in.
I modeled the whole build on a "Carolina Coop" styling with walk in instead of waist high. Over all size is 14.5'x22' with the enclosed run being 14.5'x16' plus under the henhouse. I wanted to incorporate an automatic chicken door because I go to bed sometimes before the chickens do since I get up for work at 3:30am and leave before dawn. The entire structure has a predator apron and is screened with 1/2" hardware cloth so the auto door went onto the outside wall of the run to allow free range, but can be closed off and still allow the girls to have outside space that is protected. Because of the lay of the land the roof at the far end of the run wound up being over 14' tall. It's impressive LOL. I don't have any pictures yet of the finished interior of the henhouse, but here is the overall view from the "impressive" side. I have kept my small coop "The Lil' Deuce Coop" for growout/isolation/broody and just relocated it to another area of my yard. It may be a bit much for my current 4 ladies, but you have to take chicken math into consideration! I'm supposed to get 4 chicks shipped this coming Monday to add to my flock so it already begins
It's still a work in progress. I need to add shelving in the storage area and put dirt/compost/mulch/sand in the run area. I've yet to fully decide what exact material I want to use there, but would like to be able to scoop it to add to my garden as compost. For now it's just the natural ground that existed under my trees when I bought the place. We've had some torrential storms this year and the run stays mostly dry with only a bit of wetness on half the run. Need to run electricity there as well, but that cost is for another year since we also built a concrete patio and had a hot tub installed this year. I'll wind up running a drop cord to power the brooder plate for the babies I'm going to set up in the storage side.
What material do you guys think works well for compost/chicken run that they don't live on full time?
I modeled the whole build on a "Carolina Coop" styling with walk in instead of waist high. Over all size is 14.5'x22' with the enclosed run being 14.5'x16' plus under the henhouse. I wanted to incorporate an automatic chicken door because I go to bed sometimes before the chickens do since I get up for work at 3:30am and leave before dawn. The entire structure has a predator apron and is screened with 1/2" hardware cloth so the auto door went onto the outside wall of the run to allow free range, but can be closed off and still allow the girls to have outside space that is protected. Because of the lay of the land the roof at the far end of the run wound up being over 14' tall. It's impressive LOL. I don't have any pictures yet of the finished interior of the henhouse, but here is the overall view from the "impressive" side. I have kept my small coop "The Lil' Deuce Coop" for growout/isolation/broody and just relocated it to another area of my yard. It may be a bit much for my current 4 ladies, but you have to take chicken math into consideration! I'm supposed to get 4 chicks shipped this coming Monday to add to my flock so it already begins
It's still a work in progress. I need to add shelving in the storage area and put dirt/compost/mulch/sand in the run area. I've yet to fully decide what exact material I want to use there, but would like to be able to scoop it to add to my garden as compost. For now it's just the natural ground that existed under my trees when I bought the place. We've had some torrential storms this year and the run stays mostly dry with only a bit of wetness on half the run. Need to run electricity there as well, but that cost is for another year since we also built a concrete patio and had a hot tub installed this year. I'll wind up running a drop cord to power the brooder plate for the babies I'm going to set up in the storage side.
What material do you guys think works well for compost/chicken run that they don't live on full time?
