- Mar 8, 2009
- 3
- 0
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Howdy! Me and my wonderful girlfriend are new here (her login name obviously lol). She has a silkie at school that she is showing at the local county fair. When school is out, shes a senior so she is graduating and cant keep her chicken at school. Well she wouldnt anyway, she loves chickens too much hehe. We are both the countrry type so we figured we would just build a coop to have a couple more (ok, i know i know, alot more!) since our TSC is having chick days starting this Sunday.
I been trying to put beginners engineering degree to work (2nd year at UCF) and design a coop that is nice size but well within budget. My dad is also a Gen. Contractor so i have that experience as well (and a 10% discount at HD!!).
Along with her silkie, we are hoping to get 2 buffs orps (she had one at school also but a racoons invaded their AG area and attacked many chickens and ducks!), 2 ameracaunas, 2 bantams (whatever they get in im guessing). We starting out with 6 due to the fact i dont wanna overdue it just yet and the min you can get is 6 (as most of you know im sure). We hope to maybe hatch some of our own and keep one or 2. we wont have a problem selling.
The coop i designed is a stacked design, having the coop on top of the run. The run is 8x8 (easy cause standard length of wood) and the coop is 4' 4" x 6' 10''. The numbers are wacky cause i am planning on using 2x2s instead of 2x4 for the majority of it. Of the side of the coop i have the nesting boxes. They will open for easy access
Question 1: Im still not sure how tall the run and coop will be though... right now both are only at 3ft tall... good sizes or change?
Im in orlando, fl so the hotter months are coming so i wanna make sure i have good ventilation.
The back of the coop will open up to access and clean, with the opening having a window on it as well. The windows and vents (size of vents dont directly relate to how big they will actually be) are going to be on the north and south sides, as i dont want the sun to bake in. I could put a small vent on the east side (opposite nest boxes) as that side will be backed up to woods for the most part and the sun wont be able to really shine in for two long).
And im gonna do hardware wire around the bottom just in case, although Predators wont be allowed courtesy of Camo my Catahoula.
Theres roughly 29sqft in the coop and 64sq ft in the run.
Question 2: Should i increase anything? Im trying to stay with lengths of lumber for the run, so i could go up to 10' for a 10x10 run and make the coop 1-2 ft bigger each way increasing the sq footage to around 40-50.
Keep in my mind, Im on my parents property so no way am i going to have a huge amount of birds as much as i would like to, around 10 max. If it was my property however, id have huge amount of chickens, horses, goats, sheep... you name it. But i have to make my parents happy in order to have em period!
here is a picture
I been trying to put beginners engineering degree to work (2nd year at UCF) and design a coop that is nice size but well within budget. My dad is also a Gen. Contractor so i have that experience as well (and a 10% discount at HD!!).
Along with her silkie, we are hoping to get 2 buffs orps (she had one at school also but a racoons invaded their AG area and attacked many chickens and ducks!), 2 ameracaunas, 2 bantams (whatever they get in im guessing). We starting out with 6 due to the fact i dont wanna overdue it just yet and the min you can get is 6 (as most of you know im sure). We hope to maybe hatch some of our own and keep one or 2. we wont have a problem selling.
The coop i designed is a stacked design, having the coop on top of the run. The run is 8x8 (easy cause standard length of wood) and the coop is 4' 4" x 6' 10''. The numbers are wacky cause i am planning on using 2x2s instead of 2x4 for the majority of it. Of the side of the coop i have the nesting boxes. They will open for easy access
Question 1: Im still not sure how tall the run and coop will be though... right now both are only at 3ft tall... good sizes or change?
Im in orlando, fl so the hotter months are coming so i wanna make sure i have good ventilation.
The back of the coop will open up to access and clean, with the opening having a window on it as well. The windows and vents (size of vents dont directly relate to how big they will actually be) are going to be on the north and south sides, as i dont want the sun to bake in. I could put a small vent on the east side (opposite nest boxes) as that side will be backed up to woods for the most part and the sun wont be able to really shine in for two long).
And im gonna do hardware wire around the bottom just in case, although Predators wont be allowed courtesy of Camo my Catahoula.
Theres roughly 29sqft in the coop and 64sq ft in the run.
Question 2: Should i increase anything? Im trying to stay with lengths of lumber for the run, so i could go up to 10' for a 10x10 run and make the coop 1-2 ft bigger each way increasing the sq footage to around 40-50.
Keep in my mind, Im on my parents property so no way am i going to have a huge amount of birds as much as i would like to, around 10 max. If it was my property however, id have huge amount of chickens, horses, goats, sheep... you name it. But i have to make my parents happy in order to have em period!
here is a picture
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