I just bought 6 chicks yesterday and have no clue what I am doing! I have a fairly small back yard that my kids do NOT play in. I do have 3 dogs, I 5lbs, 1 30lbs, one 60lbs, that go outside supervised. I have a patch of dirt alond an old farmers fencs that has older trees in it and grass will not grow there easily. I am big into landscaping and have an italian theme going in the back yard so naturally, the coop has to blend in! I have a larger front yard that I will build a chicken tractor and let them go in front as that is landscaped too and noone plays in it. I tend to get a little extreme when creating things and go way over the top. My questions are, should I run electric to my coop? I was also wondering about an attic vent fan in the summer to keep them cooler. Also, has anyone used concrete to build a coop? I was looking on instructables.com and had seen where this guy build his house out of rebar and concrete. I was wondering if covering the outside with concrete or stucco would create heat or if it would be ok for them. I was also wondering if anyone has ran water to thier house? I can run some pvc pipe underground and have a water outlet come up so that I can have an automatic waterer. Thank you so much for any advice. I am hoping to start on this soon as with all my wacky projects I am sure I will have to redo it a few times : )
The only time I use electricity at the coop is in the winter to power a birdbath heater to keep the water from freezing. I run an extension cord from my shop. Water being close by is nice for refilling waterers or hosing out the coop. In my opinion, chickens need ventilation most of all. They have handy down comforters to keep them warm, but rely on the environment to keep cool. That means to me that there should be plenty of ventilation, shade, and cool dirt for dust bathing. I used the free plans at purina.com as a jumping off point to build my coop. I scrounged up all the free wood that I could find, and went from there. I painted inside and out to facilitate cleaning. I set up everything so that I did not have to go inside the run for ordinary activities, such as: feeding, watering, collecting eggs, cleaning the coop. Concrete sounds appealing, but would be hard to modify in the event that you wanted to change something later on. Hope this helps. Chris
