New coop is almost finished - would love thoughts! (pic)

[franklinchickens]

Due to work schedules, flooding and all around bad weather, our coop was seriously delayed. But hopefully this weekend it will be done. All we have left is some paint, latches & knobs, nesting boxes, the ladder and the roost. The boxes on the top are for a green roof (we're planting herbs & succulents in there, and there is a door on the side by the deck for access to the nesting boxes. One last thing to finish also is the storage area over the left but that's not critical to getting the chickens outside full time. We've got 4 nearly full grown chickens living in the house at night! I guess they could probably stay in the run but I'm not 100% comfortable with that although it is quite secure.
The coop is insulated, ventilated, has vinyl flooring, trim, you name it. It weighs a ton and is super secure. We're mostly waiting for the paint to completely air out.
The plan is to finish off the trim with a fun purple for accent, and maybe add some more decorative pieces later. But for now - we'd love any feedback - is there anything we're missing? Any comments on construction?
This project was done mostly out of reclaimed lumber, scraps and a lot of ingenuity and hard work. Using used lumber made the squaring off difficult but we're pretty happy with the way our design turned out. We did buy new the hardware cloth, some of the plywood and the hardware. Our total financial investment so far on this is about $300 but if you add in the work my husband has put into it - yikes! The cool thing is that it is really custom - suits the back of the house perfectly and seems to fit all the criteria for happy chickens and a happy 8 year old (who is planning on painting polka dots on it).

 

[HennyJenny]

That is seriously cool. I love the green roof idea.

 

[eKo_birdies]

LOVE that green roof idea.. amazing! don't forget to plant the more "water-loving" plants on the low end of the downslope... but a creative genius such as yourself obviously knows that!

 

[franklinchickens]

Good idea on the 'water loving plants' at the end. We do have drainage holes with screening there but there's a good chance it'll get backed up at least occasionally. With using a lot of succulents, we're hoping for the best. The green roof is partly because we have a small yard and we love to garden, but also for maintaining temperature control in the coop & run. Our hope is to get plants at the end that overhang so it will be even prettier.
Thanks for the comments!

 

[chickenriot]

Very nice!!

 

[ScaredOfShadows]

I love the green roof chicken houses, when I got my last silkies the lady I got them from had a shed and a coop with vegetables planted on top of them, very neat, I had never seen that before.

Now i want to do it, since my yard needs all kinds of conditioning if I want to plant anything, its all red clay and not the greatest drainage so I'd have to do all sorts of stuff to a garden plot and I'm not much into the idea of so much work for a few veggies when I have free access to the neighbors' 5 garden plots.

 

[savingdogs]

It is gorgeous, would love to see it when you have the roofs planted.

My only comment is that you'll be cleaning that coop our really regularly considering how close it is to your house!

 

[Neilette]

When are you going to plant it!

 

[HHandbasket]

If I may offer my 2 clucks here regarding the "green" roofing. First of all, that is SO awesome & I've seen pics online of other henhouses like that. I'm glad to see someone actually doing it!

Now, my ark is right next to a raised bed of spinach and lettuce greens, and I go out a couple of times a day and pick a handful of greens and feed them to my girls. Spinach and lettuces are REALLY easy to grow, at least where I live (I don't know where you are). They grow better in spring and fall, though, and we're about to enter into the hot season. Maybe grow something you can give to your chickens as green treats... just a little something to consider.

In any case, here's a big high five

on the gorgeous coop! May your chickadees enjoy every moment spent in and around their li'l home! Very well done.

 

[franklinchickens]

In response - thanks for the compliments - this has been a huge undertaking! I'll update with pics when it is complete. One of my tasks today is to do finish painting (along with a bunch of gardening, blogging, contract work and other actual work related things but the yard is calling to me this morning - one of the distractions of having a home office!).
We are hoping to plant next week - and I love the spinach & lettuce idea - that's going to be 1 or 2 of the beds. We have a lot of drought resistant succulents in the front yard in rock gardens that we are going to use as well as plant some herbs. We still need to epoxy the bottom for waterproofing and get it lined with plastic, then create the soil mixture. We using a mix of our compost, peat moss and a moisture retaining soil.
To Saving Dogs - yes we do clean it out regularly! I wanted it close to the house as we live in an older downtown area with a very small yard - plus - even though you can't see it from the pictures - my husband built in a "viewing" portal for me to look into the coop from my office (right behind the coop portion). He's putting the roost right in front of that window so I can watch the chicks at night when they are roosting! The other reason is we can access the nesting boxes right off the deck, and since they are our daughters pets (they are named Mimi, Violet, Herbert & Bob - all girls) we wanted them close by so she can care for them easily & play with them. They are super social with us and her friends, even with our dog. It's not too terribly smelly as the free range the backyard most of the day, and we only have 4.
The biggest concern I have is the chickens getting up on the beds and eating everything like they are currently doing in our strawberry patch and the 1 bed of tomatoes they have access to!
**For those looking to do this - even though it just looks like raised beds on top - with doing the pitched roof for drainage - you have to really pay attention to the angles of the cuts when mitering the corners so that the framing lines up correctly. For more details, I can have my husband post some thoughts if anyone is interested.