Need your opinion: what should every coop have?

[perchie.girl]

Quote:
My planned poultry house has an airlock too. It will be 24 x 24 with space for four to five breeds of poultry on the inside under one roof. Its about half way built.

In that area I have space planned for:
a brooder/broodie house
a place to wash waterers/feeders
a place for bins for feed and DE (Diatomaceous Earth)
a place for a bale or two of Rice hulls (I use rice hulls for bedding)
a wall for shelves for other essentials like Meds, wormers, extra grit/Oyster shell, clean dry water buckets I rotate rather wash and put back in ....
a Place to hang Catch net, Rake, shovel
with enough space to walk around carrying things like rakes or bags of rice hulls.

 

[perchie.girl]

Quote:

Me wants a pole barn in the worst way. Space for the horse, space for the goats, and the feed.... and the tack. an open isle way between and space for the chikens..... sigh.... One day

 

[7L Farm]

Just build a big coop that is predator proof. You will always be tweaking it. A coop is never finished.

 

[cyrixlord]

Quote:
I use trex boards with slats where i put branches where htey roost. under the whole span of the coop (which looks like a 8 foot long cabinet set suspended 4 feet off the ground on poles) is a set of garden trays/bins (the ones that they use for carrying dirt with handles). I also have those bins close to the ground for the span of roost as well. I just pick them up and dump them into compost. half the coop (the ones with the cabinets) is also under a tall clear plastic roofing material so they can always be dry. their food and water is suspended on chains. the floor is made from concrete lattice called turfstone. the exposed side has plenty of ground and a sprinkler system that can wet the area down during dry spells.

hope this helps

http://tamanaka.com/MainGallery/ImageAndCaption.aspx?ImgID=396

 

[Wnunezcruz]

I prefer a coop I can walk in. You also need plenty of space and ventalation for your chickens.

 

[burbankchix]

We had our coop and run made by "The Green Coop", they will paint it any colors besides their standard and their are different sizes of runs to go with the coop. We had it painted to match our house, which we had just had painted, and had the same roof tiles as the house. It has human size doors and a chicken door. The only thing we would change is the run. It is an A-Frame and my husband and I are both tall, so a 4' high run is hard on us. We are going to take it and literally stand it up and use the front of the A-Frame as the top and add on a whole new front. That will make it a rectangular shape. We are also going to add another end to it this spring, making it an L-shape. Then we can put a construction fabric wall up with a door and separate, if need be, new hens or give a place for the hen-pecked ones to run! The original coop is 4'X7' and the run is 12' long.

 

[burbankchix]

Roof tiles not on yet in above picture and we keep a baby gate in the people door opening, which works so well. When we first put the chickens out in the coop run, we hung a blanket on the gate to help keep any drafts out.

 

[thebirdguy]

Lots and lots of chickens!!!

 

[pontoosuc]

A pop door that can be opened or closed from either the inside or the outside.

I have a 10x16 shed converted into a coop. Inside it's divided in half with chickens on one side
and feed/storage on the other side. I muck out the coop every morning once the chickens go
out to the enclosed run. Many of them are so curious about my mucking they want to come back
inside to watch. It's much quicker for me if they stay out while i'm doing this chore!! lol

And I keep a folding camp chair inside for me!

 

[Lund Poultry]

storage space, LOTS of windows for natural light and above all a exhaust fan up nice and hight to take out the dampness/stale air and keep everyone happy.
When we built ours we did just that and I am so glad we did. people always ask why our chicken house doesn't stink like most they have been in (LOTS of ventilation and clean, clean, clean)