Here are some pictures of our old coop and our new coop. Hope these help others with some ideas.
The old one has 6'X10' dog chain link kennel panels around the outside for walls/sides of the coop and 2 on top to help hold it all together. We also drove t-post in the ground to help stabilize it. The entire inside walls and most of the top is covered in chicken wire. The chicken wire also goes around the perimeter of the inside on the ground for 12" with cattle panels underneath the chicken pen to keep mid size to large predators out. The coop itself is 3'X6' and about 3' off the ground.
We still use this one to raise the babies because it is so secure. These pics are from when we first built it and the new coop wasnt even thought about.
Notice the cattle panel and chicken wire on the ground. The cattle panel goes outside the coop a foot or so if I remember right.
Here are some pics of the new one. We really like the new one, but think it may just be house 2 one day and we may end up with a third. This one has 4 vents, 2 windows, 1 chicken door, and 1 man/human door. We also painted the inside white and the outside barn red just like the other one.
Here is a pic of the inside of the new coop just a bit before it was finished. You can see the roost made from 2x4s and mesquite tree branches on the right with nest boxes on the left. There is a 1x6 cedar board in front of the nest boxes that can be removed for cleaning. There is 8 nest boxes total. Also notice the chicken ramp up to bottom row of nest boxes. This is for the old/lazy birds.
Notice you can see the old coop and chicken pen/run in the background. The new run has chicken wire on top also.
When we let the birds out every morning we ended up having to put this old chain link gate propped up in front of the door where the birds can sneak under it and we can keep the dang cows out. Never knew cows liked chicken feed, but they do. This was right before we finished. There is a roost in this run also like the one inside the coop, but it is not in this pic. If you look close you can see our white leg horn rooster entering in the chicken door.
Both chicken runs/pens are 10'X20'. we actually plan on adding to the run of the larger making 3 different, but all connected areas so if we want to breed them we can put certain ones together. With any luck this add on will be done before winter.
Also notice all the white Xs on every thing like old barns. We do it for more than just the barn look we use them to be able to tell at a glance if anything is open or closed. We painted almost everything with Kilz primer first. We used it inside and just left it white for the brightness and some where we heard flies dont like white, but dont know. Every where the barn red is we had home depot put a tint of gray in the white so the red barn paint didnt come out pink. On the floors we used floor paint like you see in the sheds at home depot and lowes so it is easier to clean.
The old one has 6'X10' dog chain link kennel panels around the outside for walls/sides of the coop and 2 on top to help hold it all together. We also drove t-post in the ground to help stabilize it. The entire inside walls and most of the top is covered in chicken wire. The chicken wire also goes around the perimeter of the inside on the ground for 12" with cattle panels underneath the chicken pen to keep mid size to large predators out. The coop itself is 3'X6' and about 3' off the ground.
We still use this one to raise the babies because it is so secure. These pics are from when we first built it and the new coop wasnt even thought about.
Notice the cattle panel and chicken wire on the ground. The cattle panel goes outside the coop a foot or so if I remember right.
Here are some pics of the new one. We really like the new one, but think it may just be house 2 one day and we may end up with a third. This one has 4 vents, 2 windows, 1 chicken door, and 1 man/human door. We also painted the inside white and the outside barn red just like the other one.
Here is a pic of the inside of the new coop just a bit before it was finished. You can see the roost made from 2x4s and mesquite tree branches on the right with nest boxes on the left. There is a 1x6 cedar board in front of the nest boxes that can be removed for cleaning. There is 8 nest boxes total. Also notice the chicken ramp up to bottom row of nest boxes. This is for the old/lazy birds.
Notice you can see the old coop and chicken pen/run in the background. The new run has chicken wire on top also.
When we let the birds out every morning we ended up having to put this old chain link gate propped up in front of the door where the birds can sneak under it and we can keep the dang cows out. Never knew cows liked chicken feed, but they do. This was right before we finished. There is a roost in this run also like the one inside the coop, but it is not in this pic. If you look close you can see our white leg horn rooster entering in the chicken door.
Both chicken runs/pens are 10'X20'. we actually plan on adding to the run of the larger making 3 different, but all connected areas so if we want to breed them we can put certain ones together. With any luck this add on will be done before winter.
Also notice all the white Xs on every thing like old barns. We do it for more than just the barn look we use them to be able to tell at a glance if anything is open or closed. We painted almost everything with Kilz primer first. We used it inside and just left it white for the brightness and some where we heard flies dont like white, but dont know. Every where the barn red is we had home depot put a tint of gray in the white so the red barn paint didnt come out pink. On the floors we used floor paint like you see in the sheds at home depot and lowes so it is easier to clean.
