Nestera Coop for sale

[DonnaDonut55]

I have a Nestera large 6-8 hens coop for sale with automatic door opener attached and working. Total was £888 2 - 3 years ago. Selling for £325. I am in Kent UK

 

[Shadrach]

I have a Nestera large 6-8 hens coop for sale with automatic door opener attached and working. Total was £888 2 - 3 years ago. Selling for £325. I am in Kent UK

Reason for sale?

 

[Ridgerunner]

These are the dimensions I found for the large Nestara coop.

Large Ground Coop Internal Dimensions: Width: 47.6" (including nest box) Depth: 31.4"

Take off for the nests and that is probably good for two chickens if they have a lot of access to the outside. You might be able to squeeze three in there but it would be tight. In Kent you will have really mild weather as far as chickens go so you can probably give them a lot of outside access.

 

[Perris]

These are the dimensions I found for the large Nestara coop.

Large Ground Coop Internal Dimensions: Width: 47.6" (including nest box) Depth: 31.4"

Take off for the nests and that is probably good for two chickens if they have a lot of access to the outside. You might be able to squeeze three in there but it would be tight. In Kent you will have really mild weather as far as chickens go so you can probably give them a lot of outside access.

Nestera coops are meant only for roosting in and laying in. The chickens spend the day outside it.

Edited to add, I sometimes find 15 large fowl have piled into my large one to roost together. The Animal and Plant Health inspector, with whom I have discussed this explicitly, says it is fine, because they are choosing to pile in, they have choices and can roost in other coops if they wish.

 

[DonnaDonut55]

Reason for sale?

Our daughter is pursuing a career and needs some space in the garden for work space, would not be saying goodbye to our hens otherwise.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Nestera coops are meant only for roosting in and laying in. The chickens spend the day outside it.

Edited to add, I sometimes find 15 large fowl have piled into my large one to roost together. The Animal and Plant Health inspector, with whom I have discussed this explicitly, says it is fine, because they are choosing to pile in, they have choices and can roost in other coops if they wish.

If you manage them this way, which to me means you leave the pop door open 24/7 so they can come and go as they please. I'd want a predator proof run if I were going to do that, but maybe that is personal preference. I would not want them locked in that coop during daylight hours.

Many things can work in specific cases but that does not mean you should plan for them to work in all cases.

 

[Bawkbok]

which to me means you leave the pop door open 24/7 so they can come and go as they please. I'd want a predator proof run if I were going to do that,

We don't have a nestera but a different, similar concept prefab. It is attached to a critter resistant run. We have an auto door but have never used it as we leave the coop door open 24/7. Most would probably disagree with this given the risk at night, however, we feel more comfortable incurring the slight risk of predation due to insufficient wildlife. (city limits with 6ft enclosed fence)

My thinking is:
- the auto door might fail and they would be trapped if no one is around to let them out
- a tree could fall on it in the middle of the night and they have no escape
- a night critter (rat / mouse / other)? could invade the coop and they would have no get away room or way to exit the coop
- they like to emerge LONG before sunup. It is still pitch black out nautically speaking, but the neighbor's light illuminates the top half of the run all night and our yard so this might be encouraging them to come out of the coop while it's still dark out
- We have a night layer that lays between 5-6 AM and likes to emerge as soon as she lays
- We use fans to cool the coop interior and exterior given our hot, humid climate and stale night air
- I don't necessarily sleep better knowing they are exposed with an open door but I think I would sleep less if I had them closed and locked all night and God forbid, I didn't wake up and the door failed.

We had failure with an auto door previously so I'm skeptical of them.

I say all this with some level of comfort until last night at 11:30 PM when I stepped out to listen to any coop noises as I do every night and to adjust fan speeds and all I heard was a large pack of coyotes traveling down the street one block away. Sounded like a large family pack, very loud. I don't know if they would go through the trouble of digging under a fence to get to chickens; would they? Seems there are easier meals to acquire. But it wouldn't take much to enter the yard since the ground is sand and easily moveable -- and then we'd have a problem.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this if you don't mind.

 

[Ridgerunner]

But it wouldn't take much to enter the yard since the ground is sand and easily moveable -- and then we'd have a problem.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this if you don't mind.

Sorry for hijacking this thread but I'd have no-dig aprons around the run. PM me if you need to.

 

[Bawkbok]

Sorry for hijacking this thread but I'd have no-dig aprons around the run. PM me if you need to.

We do have no dig aprons, they are only 7" wide however, (wide enough?) are staked to the ground, covered with inches of sand and then bricks and paver stones on top lined all around. This is to anchor the run for hurricane force winds. It survived beautifully last year during Helene and Milton which were both direct hits. We sustained a ton of tree damage but the run didn't budge.

 

[Perris]

If you manage them this way, which to me means you leave the pop door open 24/7 so they can come and go as they please. I'd want a predator proof run if I were going to do that, but maybe that is personal preference. I would not want them locked in that coop during daylight hours.

Many things can work in specific cases but that does not mean you should plan for them to work in all cases.

In my case the pop doors are open dawn to dusk. But that isn't really the point.
The point I was trying to make - and have tried and evidently failed multiple times before on a variety of different threads when it has come up - is that it is a fundamental error to treat the size of these coops as if they are intended for birds to live in them. They do nothing more than sleep and lay in them. There are no windows. The (many) ventilation holes are the only source of light. The poop trays completely fill the floor space (except for the nest boxes). They are intended to sit in a garden/yard, with or without a run (there is no run here), and the birds come home to roost in them. They do not spend their waking hours in them. Judging these coops by standards created for coops that serve as a 24/7 house and home for chickens is to compare apples with acorns.

The whole of the UK has a temperate climate. We do not get months of snow cover - most places get no snow most years. We do not get blistering heat. So no-one here expects to have to keep their birds confined inside the coop for days, never mind months, on end. They sleep in the coop, go out for the day, come home to roost, and go to sleep. However, confinement to a coop is apparently the default US model, so you assume it's the same elsewhere. It isn't. They are completely different styles of coop for completely different circumstances.

These coops are sufficiently robust and well designed that no local wildlife has so much as nibbled any part of any of them (I have 4) since I started with my first in 2017, so the birds are safe when shut in at night. I should add that wildlife here does not include bears, cougars, and other significant threats that people in other countries may have to contend with; it's foxes, dogs, snakes (venomous adder seen recently), rats, and an assortment of aerial predators.

Foxes are all around; the last attack was in 2020, and that was a daytime attack - which resulted in 2 injured roos, both of whom recovered. I then gave up on the received wisdom that one shouldn't have multiple roos in a flock, and have increased the number of roos since; not coincidentally, I think, we've had no fox attack for the last 5 years. Multiple roos, rather than fences and wire, have kept the local foxes from trying it on again here. There are much easier targets, and the foxes take them instead. You might call it a pro-active approach to flock protection, instead of passive reliance on hardware.