thought i would share some thoughts on my true suburban backyard coop: 1st let me say i'm a guy and i wanted my small coop(4x8) to be very easy to clean and keep smell free due to my location, and although i love my peeps (i only have two,figured that would be plenty of eggs for two people,thats why i have chickens ,no? ),there not my only hobby(cars, harleys ,gym,guitar etc.!) i tend to pick up the poop daily(could probably do it every 5 days) with a kitty litter scoop and inspect the pen. looking at alot of small coops on this site i see people putting pine shavings in the run area and i have to say that to me it just looks to labor intensive to keep clean and smell free .when i had them in the brooder i had to change the bedding every other day or the smell got bad.needless to say i took advice from this site and put const. sand in my run and it is awesome ! drys the poop out quickly! also i elevated the feed and water on a shelf with expanded metal to let the poop fall thru and to keep the sand out of the water and that has worked out great. i have learned that if there is any exposed surface, they will poop on it!!!!!!!! sorry for rambling, too much coffee this morning, just was looking thru the coop forum and was thinking some of these small coops take too much work to maintain (and when the new car smell wears off) ,that makes people tend to slack off creating the tendancy for smell to arise and neighbors complain,then chickens get banned, IMHO again i'm just talking about true small backyard coops again sorry for rambling ,i'm spent bye
Very, very nice and efficient, and I like the sand idea, I will remember that for the future! I also admire your self control for having only 2. I could never be so parsimonious when it comes to chickens!
I started with "just two" girls as well.. I will be waiting for a "OH DANG I NEED TO EXPAND THE COOP" post hahaha. I am up to 5 now and two coops looks great though, one of my coops is a two hen coop pretty much for my two 4 month old pullets. The other three stay in another coop right next door to the smaller one Looks good
Looks great! We're starting on a similar design today (the Garden Coop) and also plan on using constrution sand. Welcome to BYC!
i started w/3 peeps one turned into a roo had to get rid of him! i was going to get another peep ,this time a pullet, i contacted lynn about a millie cochin and went and visited her "hacienda" if you like millie cochins she has some awesome birds, but she has a policy about selling at least two at a time ,and i think she's right, so i'm trying to hold off because i only have approx. 30sgft. of run space, and again i only eat so many eggs and having only two peeps keeps the all important maintenance down to a minimum
