Need some advice on inside of coop open if you dare

[Brie6895]

If anyone could help me it would be greatly appreciated!! I have a ton of questions so i hope yall are ready

I will have 5 chickens possibly 6 that will be in this coop (as of right now it will be 3 to 4 LF breeds and 2 to 3 silkies, depending on which ones turn out to be roosters) I will be keeping no more than 6.

The coop itself is 4x4 the highest height being 5ft and lowest being 4ft. Notice the slant in the picture.

Well I have discovered the lovely poop board thread and I am dying to have something like this in my coop

I can't decide if I would like an L shape which would take up most of my coop. Or just one 4ft long board in the back of the coop.

I am wondering how many ft per bird can go on the perch? And also how far away should the perch be from the wall?

I was thinking of doing a 1 1/2ft depth board (4ft long of course) but have the actually perch 9in from the wall basically putting the perch in the middle on the board. Would this be enough room? Is 2 1/2ft off the ground a good place to start the board?


What do y'all use for a perch? What's a good width? Is round better than a 2x4?


what do y'all use for nesting boxes? Besides the traditionally built ones. I'd love to see pictures! how many birds per nesting box?


If anyone has read this far I appreciate it! I am overwhelmed with options and I want everything to work out! Thanks again!

 

[Brie6895]

Anyone?? My fiancé is finishing the coop tomorrow while I am at work. Since I won't be there to supervise I am extra paranoid that if I don't have the exact plans I need he will take short cuts and it won't be what I wanted. I know this sounds ridiculous but it is what it is

 

[KnoxvilleChick]

A 4 foot roost is about as small as you can go for 6 birds, typically you hear 8-10 inches of roost per bird. And with most things chicken, you don't want to go as small as possible, because you end up regretting it later. As to the distance from the wall, I think you're ok, but the poop will go farther than you think As to what to use for a roost, in your climate it's really up to you, although I've had success with natural branches and 2x4s more than a smooth round closet dowel, probably because they can grip it easier. You shouldn't have to worry about frostbitten toes. Height is negotiable, although you want it to be significantly higher than the nest box so they don't sleep in the nests and give you poop-covered eggs.

I had a poop board, but now I just use the deep litter method and stir everything up once a week or so and add more shavings. No odor issues, and I clean everything into the compost about 2-3 times a year. My hens are only in the coop at night, they roam the yard (or occasionally just the outdoor run) during the day. I personally prefer no poop board for our coop. The only thing I miss is a relatively clean place (underneath the poop board) for indoor food and water. Now I just keep everything underneath my raised coop, and that works, too.

One thing on your poop board, though...you'll want to be able to easily remove it to dump it, or be able to easily reach it to scoop, probably on a daily or every other day basis. Since you don't have a walk in coop, that means either a door that is slightly wider than the narrow end that you can slide it out and dump, or door the whole length of the coop that opens up so you can remove and dump or scoop the sand. It may be that your access doors are on the far side of the pic, or just that I can't see it, but and easily accessible coop is really really important for those frequent chores.

My coop is pretty much the same size as yours, although the run is shaped differently. I built external nest boxes...best thing ever. You can get the eggs without going in the run or coop, and it leaves more space inside. And it only took me about 2 hours to build them, I found some plans online (Google nest boxes for Garden Coop and it should come up, I think). With 6 birds, you would be fine with 2 nesting boxes.

 

[Brie6895]

Thank you so much! Why did you get rid of the poop board? Are there negatives to it?

I was planning on having a door on the whole back side of the coop (the part you cant see in the pic) basically able to open up the whole back to sweep out the shavings on the floor and then sort of climb in to scoop out the stuff on the poop board. Since the poop board would be I guess what you could call the front of the coop (the side across from where my whole back door would be)

Would it be smarter to place the poop board on the back side? Where I could just swing open the back door sweep up the shavings and scoop out the poop on the board without having to crawl inside?

I wish I knew what my chicks were going to be but I don't.. I know I have two cochin hens that are 8 weeks and I have 5 little chicks about 3 weeks old 1 cochin 1 BO and 3 silkies. I'm thinking the most LF that would be on the roost is 4 and I'm guessing the 2 silkies would sleep on the ground. (I know I will have to give one or 2 chicks away ) but I don't want them to be crowded and when we built the coop it was only for 3 chickens! Haha!

Mine can't free range because my fiancé and I work all the time. We also have 3 dogs... So wouldn't make for a good ending if we left them out lol.

For the time being we were thinking of using tubawear type nesting boxes so we can just pull them out and dump the shavings or if they get too nasty we could throw them away.

 

[farmgirlroots]

I'd suggest making your poop board accessible to scooping without having to climb inside. That would get really old really fast!

I had old wood closet rods as my roost and just changed it to 2x4 with the 4" side up so they can sit on the board to sleep. I noticed immediately they seemed SO much more comfortable ! Before they seemed to really have to grip the round rod tight to stay on and now they can just settle right down into big fluffy relaxed balls, tuck their heads, and snooze.

 

[Brie6895]

Maybe I can just build a small door behind the board so I can swing it open and scoop? I would love an external nesting box but not sure if the hubby will build one. Will 6 birds to 2 nesting boxes cause eggs to get smushed because they are all trying to use the 2?

Thank you I will certainly use the 2 x 4 it just seems way more comfortable like you described

 

[Brie6895]

this is my plan

 

[KnoxvilleChick]

Sorry...I'm not a consistent BYC checker!!

I got rid of the poop boards because I didn't want to clean them every day, and because it really doesn't match up with the whole deep litter concept. he idea is to allow the poop to compost in the coop, so if you're removing it every day that doesn't really happen. I've noticed a decrease in flies, too- I imagine because the poop gets stirred into the bedding, rather than resting out on top.

Hope everything's going well!

 

[aggiemae]

Our coop is very similar to the first one pictured except the roof slants the other way to accommodate the prevailing wind and keep as much rain out of the run as possible. The coop is oriented from north to south with the roof slant lowest on the south side to shade it better in summer. The coop is 5'X7' and the covered run is 12'x7' including the area under the coop. We have eight hens, they free range from 10am till dusk so the space is quite ample.

The roosts are 2x4's so that perch is 4" wide. Our low roost is ~15" from the back wall of the coop and ~16" from the coop floor. The top roost is ~15" from the front wall where we have a row of windows so the hens can look outside. It's ~36" up from the floor.

The roosts are a little over 7' long and easily accommodates 8 hens, two are about 8-9 pounds so quite large. They only sleep on the top roost but the height doesn't really matter as long as the coop is safe. With a 7 foot roost our hens have enough room between them so they don't overheat in the summer. In winter they squeeze together and take up only about 4 feet of space.

We use 2" of stall dry on the coop floor that we clean directly into the compost bin every morning with a cat litter scoop. It takes less than two minutes. I tired a poop board first and the stall dry on the floor is much easier to keep up. It take 3/4 of a 40 pound bag (about $10.00 for 40 pounds) to cover the coop floor and the rest of the bag is added in to replace what is scooped out with poop cleaning and will last about 6 more months.

With the original five hens we could have gotten by with one but we have two nest boxes. They open from the top, They are 14"x14" because we have two Maran hens and they tend to be large, but 12"x12" is fine for average birds. They are lined with old towels and filled with pine shavings. because we use the stall dry on the floor that poop dries so quickly that we almost never get any poop in our nest box or on our eggs.

We do not heat the coop at all. The prevailing wind is from the north so for draft and wind free ventilation our coop has vents on the east and west wall (6 sq feet total) that are well above the top roost plus three windows that face the run that we close only in the winter. Our roof is tin but it's over foam insulation and 1/4" plywood on the coop side.

We built the coop out of used cedar fencing, shipping crates and recycled or leftover 4x4's, We got the tin roofing ($30.00) and flooring ($3.00) and 30 ft of chicken wire ($4.50), three glass front kitchen cabinet doors ($1.00 ea with glass), a gallon of gray paint ($5.00) and a quart of white paint ($1.00) plus all the hinges and latches at the Habitat for Humanity store. We spent a little over $200.00, the bulk of the cost was actually for hardware cloth for the (so far) predator proof run.