New Coop Construction with Photos!

[Blazer]

Thank you all for the compliments! As the coop sits right now, the cleanout door is a little low, and I have to bend over to stick my head in there. My plan is to put the coop on some concrete 4x4 pads to boost it up about 6". I think that should be just enough to make it a little easier. I plan on building a run to attach to this coop as well, although I haven't decided how I'm going to approach it just yet. I like the ease of construction of a hoop house run, but I'm open to ideas. I'd love to have one tall enough to walk into for ease of maintenance's sake, but I'll have to see what size constraints i'm working with once I get it into position.

 

[Blazer]

This weekend, I found a little bit of time to put up the hardware cloth on both ends of the coop. At everyone's advice, I enlarged the ventilation areas so that my girls would have quite a bit of airflow across them while on their roost.

 

[MamaChic21]

very well done, looks awesome

 

[Gallo del Cielo]

It looks nice. Well done!

 

[SunnyD]

Quote:
Blazer, I built 2 hoop runs last year and was very pleased on how they turned out. I made my hoop from "hog panels" and they work great. I used 2 panels for each run which made them about 8 feet long and 5 feet high and I then cover the entire run with ordinary poultry wire and then attached some used fencing with 2"x4" openings which I had left over from another project. I buried that fence wire below ground level, bending a right angel "lip" to keep digging pests out. I attached the poultry wire to the grid with wire twists that you use to hold rebar together when pouring reinforced concrete. The waterer & feeder hang on short chains from the hog panel and I have that one end covered with about a 36" panel of plastic tarp to provide shade and keep the rain out. This worked great on the hoop run attached to the coop. However, I made the mistake and left some young Guinea's overnight in the run without the coop attached, and lost a a couple! The "murdering thief" somehow pulled/ate my guineas through the chicken wire without any damage to the wire! So now I'm covering the bottom 2' with 1/2" hardware cloth which should stop this from happening again. I'm also adding a small coop to this run to be sure anything I put in there will have a safe place to go at night. I would have attached a picture, but still haven't figured that out Later.

 

[TNChick82]

Lookin good!

 

[Lbrad7]

Great Job!!! Follow the ventilation advice of your local BYC friends and I think you are going to be in great shape! Look forward to seeing it when its all complete.

 

[reksat]

Nice looking coop Blazer. May i ask where u found the brackets for your rafters at? I'm am going to be doing something simular and dont want to do a shed roof. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

 

[Blazer]

I just finished installing all of my hardware cloth across the vents, and hope to have my main wall panels cut out by this weekend! I'm T-3 weeks until I get my 3 week old chicks so the pressure is on!

SunnyD, your hoop coop sounds exactly like what I am hoping to build. I just need to figure out a way to get those 16' cattle panels from TSC to my house! The ease of design and construction is appealing, especially since the main coop has been a time consuming task.


Reksat, a neighbor of mine gave me these L brackets. It did make the whole job alot easier than notching the wood, or building them from 2x4's. You might try your local hardware store and see if they have anything like them. If not, you can always buy a flat "tie" plate with pre drilled holes and bend them into an L shape with a vice.

 

[reksat]

Thanks Blazer for the advice .I will give that a try.