New coop!! Ideas? Suggestions?

[Bakbuk]

Hey y’all dad and I will be building a new chicken coop very soon and I’d like all the help with ideas and suggestions I can get! I want to know everything! What kind of coop? What building materials? How many roosts and nest boxes, and where should I put them? Where should I put feeders, waterers? What bedding material?
I want it to be able to house 20-25 chooks. Any helpful information is MORE than welcome!
Thanks in advance!!

 

[mowin]

Think predator proofing and ventilation before building, and design it into your plans. PITA to modify a coop once built.

Go to the coop article page and you can read for days on different styles and types of coops.

Region also plays a big part as what type of coop will be best. What general area are you located?

 

[Bakbuk]

Region also plays a big part as what type of coop will be best. What general area are you located?

South Kansas. We have fairly hot summers and quite cold winters

 

[mowin]

Rule of thumb is 4sqf of unobstructed floor space per bird, more is better.
10sqf of run per bird. 1ft of roost per bird, and very importantly, min of 1sqf of 24-7-365 ventilation well above the birds while on roost.

 

[mowin]

Insulation, heat is not needed. Insulation just makes a nice place for rodents to take up residence. A well ventilated, draft free coop is what you're looking for.

 

[Bakbuk]

Rule of thumb is 4sqf of unobstructed floor space per bird, more is better.
10sqf of run per bird. 1ft of roost per bird, and very importantly, min of 1sqf of 24-7-365 ventilation well above the birds while on roost.

Our chickens really don’t spend much time in the coop, (they free-range on our four acres almost all day) so I think we could get away with a little smaller than that (coop size, I mean). I very much doubt that dad is going to build an 80 sqf coop if he doesn’t need to.

 

[629864]

Hey y’all dad and I will be building a new chicken coop very soon and I’d like all the help with ideas and suggestions I can get! I want to know everything! What kind of coop? What building materials? How many roosts and nest boxes, and where should I put them? Where should I put feeders, waterers? What bedding material?
I want it to be able to house 20-25 chooks. Any helpful information is MORE than welcome!
Thanks in advance!!

I'm relatively new to chickens and we're using the two henhouses that were already on the property when we bought it. Our chickens also free range during the day on about 1.5 acres in winter, and much further afield in summer. After reading loads of people's experiences and seeing what they've done, as well as having nearly a year to experience these two 12' x 6' henhouses, here's what I've learned and how I'd like to modify each.

"Chicken Coop"
One coop was built for chickens and works fairly well, but the pop door was placed behind the roosting bars, which is really inconvenient. They also used MDF for siding on both houses, and it's crumbling badly. Not knowing that each hen doesn't need her own nesting box, I added too many to the three existing boxes, so now that house has 9 boxes. They also didn't add ventilation holes at the roofline, but rather added two smallish windows up high. What I'd do differently if I had built it from scratch is: add one additional nesting box for a total of 4; have the pop door on the side of the house instead of at the back under the roosting bars; keep the windows for light but add in ventilation holes; use corrugated metal for siding the bottom half and wood for the top half; dig a trench all the way around and bury hardware cloth covered by stone/brick and then dirt. I would also use hardware cloth on the windows and vents (they used chicken wire). Finally, I would install a raccoon-proof lock on the door (they just have a piece of wood that rotates to keep the door from opening, so each evening I roll a very heavy rock in front of the door).

"Guinea Coop"
The second coop was built for guineas with two parallel roosts at 4' high. These roosts run the length of the coop rather than the width, offering far more roosting space than in the other coop even though they're the same dimensions. This coop is great for lightweight, flighty birds like brown leghorns, but the high roosts are difficult for heftier birds and there's no ladder. This coop also has great roofline ventilation and has a very large run built adjacent. The side that exits to the run isn't walled, but rather entirely covered in chicken wire, which offers more sun, but the exit for the birds is just an open flap in the chicken wire rather than a framed exit that can be securely opened/closed. This coop did not come with any nesting boxes. What I would do differently: cover the open side with hardware cloth and frame a pop door that can easily be opened or closed but keeps the birds secure when closed; install a poop board under the roosts + ladder; build nesting boxes + brooder/broody box under the poop board; same siding, trench and lock on the door as with the first coop.

Additional things I'd do differently
1) Build the coops close to each other so they could be connected with a roofed run.
2) Roof the existing run.
3) If I were to have built the coops in their current location, I'd have fenced the connecting chicken yard between them at least 8' high with netting to cover at a minimum. The connecting yard currently only has a 4' chain link fence and no cover. This last point is one we plan to address this summer if the budget allows.

 

[Iluveggers]

I think an 8x12 coop would do the trick for you. Hoop coops are relatively inexpensive and do not require a lot of building skill. They are usually 6ft wide so you could do 6x12 and house up to 18 birds in one of those!

 

[Bakbuk]

I think an 8x12 coop would do the trick for you. Hoop coops are relatively inexpensive and do not require a lot of building skill. They are usually 6ft wide so you could do 6x12 and house up to 18 birds in one of those!

Hmm, maybe. Not exactly what I had in mind though…
I’ll tell y’all what I‘m considering in a minute.

 

[Bakbuk]

So I was thinking something like this:
A kinda shed-like structure (rectangle in shape) with two twelve-foot-long roosting bars near the back and a poop tray underneath. On the sides of the coop we would put up six nest boxes attached to the walls, three on each side. We’d make little hinges and latches on the outside so we wouldn’t actually have to go into the coop to check for eggs. Also I was thinking for keeping the chooks cool in the summer, we could build part of the walls to open up/come off leaving a space covered by hardware cloth that would let the coop ventilate well in the summer. We’ll (obviously) figure out winter ventilation as well.