Need ideas for a coop in the city

[sweetpeace]

We are in the city limits and only allowed 4 hens, so a few years back I bought a pre-fab house from the farm store.
We moved to a new place that is completely fenced in so the girls are allowed to roam free (when the dog isn't out) but it came with a dog run on a concrete slab so I just put the smallish coop inside the dog run and it worked ok until this winter-we lost 3 hens and I'm not sure if it was a critter attack or just the sub-zero temps.
I'm looking for ideas now to improve on the area we have.
I could put some sort of paneling around the outside of the chain link fencing and a roof over but I think that may be a bit overkill for just 4 hens! Plus I don't have more than a 4 foot square area to put the waste bedding so putting bedding on the entire concrete slab (for warmth in the winter) would be too much I think.
I've attached a pic of what I'm working with. Excuse the mess. No birds have been living in there for a few months.

I GREATLY appreciate any ideas!

 

[jetdog]

You definitely need a roof or netting on the top, I would use sand in the run I use it and love it very easy to clean and any water drains out quickly. I don't heat mine and they did fine over the winter it was probably a predator.

 

[sweetpeace]

How do you clean up the poo from the sand?
In that small coop I use cedar shavings and just scoop it all out and toss it in a compost pile. Do you just rake the sand?

 

[Bulldog6]

I would agree that you would need some sort of a cover for the run/yard that they have.

As for the ground cover I have read on here about people using leaves for a deep litter method but that was inside the coop. Not sure if that would work for you out side or not. The leaves do shred up easily and can be tilled in the garden or compost piles if you have one.

 

[jetdog]

For the sand I use a cat litter scoop to get all the visible poop then I use a rake to uncover any poop that got buried.

 

[sweetpeace]

And sandy poop is ok for compost?

 

[jetdog]

I don't compost I just throw everything into the grass clippings pile on the edge of my property, it seems to go down after winter.

 

[yyz0yyz0]

I don't compost I just throw everything into the grass clippings pile on the edge of my property, it seems to go down after winter.

Actually, what you are doing is Composting. Just a more natural form of it.


Sandy poop should be fine for your compost pile.


Since your run has a concrete floor it would be good to lay down something for them to dig/scratch through. This was my first winter with the girls and as the snow started to melt I had lots of mud in my dirt floored run. So to stay out of the mud I tossed in a couple of bales of straw and that helped immensely with the mud problem while the snow was melting. As a plus the girls LOVE to dig and scratch and more the straw around in the run. I scored 25bales of straw free last fall. I just looked around at holloween time and noticed several businesses that had used straw bales as decorations for the season. So I stopped in and asked what they did with the bales at the end of the season and most of them just disposed of them. They were more than happy to have me come by and "dispose" of the bales for them, I piles them up in the backyard and covered them up to keep them relatively dry till ready for use.