Need coup buying advice

[linguini]

Close.
......another, cry now or cry later.

I am definitely the one who has been crying many a time since I started lurking around BYC!

@SRVfan65​

First - congrats for asking the experts in BYC for advice before you buy/build! We did not know about the the forum till last month. We are not at all handy with woodwork (don't own any proper saw and my only talent is using cable ties). The only choice we thought we had then was buying prefab from the web. (I not only bought one, even bought a second one in December realizing the coop we have was definitely too small.) By the time I joined BYC forum, our pullets were 6 months old and our yard was buried in snow, any remodeling will have to wait. Will have to suffer from the coop-envy syndrome for a few more months.

Just one other reminder - if you have a sizable yard, location of the coop and run is quite important. We made a mistake of building a run (8x8x8, no saw to cut the lumber ) near our garage for convenience, not realizing that the location is in the low ground. Even though it does not seem sloping visually, the spot is always the last patch of the yard to dry after rain. Had I know how much space I am willing to give up to our chooks .....

 

[U_Stormcrow]

^^^ next to the house virtually guarantees problems with water run off. Not only is the roof a non-permeable surface, meaning all the rainfall on the square footage of your house, plus driveway, has to go "somewhere else", but code and good engineering practice demand the ground slope away from the foundation - so a coop close to the house is situated to almost ensure a disproportionate amount of rainfall will be funneled thru it...

 

[Miss_Lavransdatter]

Look into building your own coop. If you find blueprints online that you like/that will work, you can just buy some wood and other materials for it at a hardware store. It can be less than $200 total!

 

[21hens-incharge]

Look into building your own coop. If you find blueprints online that you like/that will work, you can just buy some wood and other materials for it at a hardware store. It can be less than $200 total!

Lumber cost has risen...dramatically recently. Here ONE 4x4 fence post is now over $35 and ONE 2x4x8 is now almost $8.

To be anywhere near $200 including a run all lumber would have to be free or cull.
Cull is tricky to work with due to warping/splitting.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

My current build is up $everal hundred$ due to lumber cost increases, and its minimally framed. The metal roof is $235 in steel, the walls are $250 in hardie board. Neither of those costs changed, and I considered it quite reasonable for a 10x16 area. The rest should have cost me around $250 in framing, and I have that just in the roof rafters and ridge board, and almost again in 4x4s. Then there's the framing on the walls, and I've not added nesting boxes or perches yet, or even considered a door. (Actually, I did - I won't be installing one)

 

[Cattle dog Mom]

My Little Monitor Coop is built for 4 chickens and, I think, is about as small as is truly practical for long-term use -- being approximately 4'x4'x4'.

Hope you don't mind me hijacking someone else's thread, but do you get much rain AND wind (at the same time.)? I really like the roof style of your little coop. But I get wind and rain or snow. (As in the snow comes down SIDEWAYS. Makes me wonder if this type of roof would work for me. And straight from the east is the ONLY direction I don't get hard wind from.

 

[Cattle dog Mom]

Look on Craig's list for old sheds. For a couple hundred bucks you could turn it into a good coop.

My next coop (chicken math got me) will be made with slab wood. I can get that fairly cheaply. Made a wood shed this fall using it and construction was quick. For a coop, I will need to run the slabs down the table saw to make the edges straight so they butt up together, but sure will be less expensive than new lumber.

This is the shed mid construction. All these slabs were free. The coop will be similar style. Ventilation will be easy. It will be like they have a little log cabin.

View attachment 2537838

Then what do you do to keep wind and snow out?

 

[Spikeandbean]

Have you considered a shed (e.g., Rubbermaid) conversion? There are sheds at box stores that could be converted for chickens (add ventilation, roosts, and nest boxes...). Might be the best of both worlds.

 

[Cattle dog Mom]

Have you considered a shed (e.g., Rubbermaid) conversion? There are sheds at box stores that could be converted for chickens (add ventilation, roosts, and nest boxes...). Might be the best of both worlds.

Hijack alert! LOL Do those (Rubbermaid type) sheds get super hot inside in the summer? (same or more so than say a wooden one.)

 

[3KillerBs]

they didn’t stand up to the amount of rain we have gotten this year.

*nods*

The climate of the southeast EATS wood.

Hope you don't mind me hijacking someone else's thread, but do you get much rain AND wind (at the same time.)? I really like the roof style of your little coop. But I get wind and rain or snow. (As in the snow comes down SIDEWAYS. Makes me wonder if this type of roof would work for me. And straight from the east is the ONLY direction I don't get hard wind from.

My coop was tested in Hurricane Florence and came through bone dry.

It would be possible to make the roof overhangs even larger for more insurance.