Open air coops

[jeremy]

Quote:
That's very close to what I would like to have! Thanks for posting this.

 

[elmo]

What about building a palapa structure inside your secure run?

http://www.tropicalshade.net/

You could use some bamboo panels to make a wall on the back and part of the sides for wind shelter. That would look cool. Then you'd need to get a couple of jungle fowl to go with the theme....

 

[harryg6167]

This is a picture or two of one of our pens. We had some 12" cypress boards available so on the north and south sides we went up 5-6' with them
on the east end we used 2"x4" welded wire and covered it with 1" chicken wire. Originall we did not use the chicken wire to cover it but we moved some
young chicks out to this pen and they could get through the welded wire. This was 2 different pens to begin with but we took down the middle divider in
the walled up part and made it 1 big pen. It measure 20'x25' now. During this past winter we put boards up on the east end since it got so cold
here and then around the run area we hung tarps to cut down on the wind. As long as no wind was blowing in and we had a heat lamp or 2 on it stayed comfortable enough
that they did not bunch up in a corner and we did not lose any birds. It's not the fanciest pen in the world but it's easy to clean and with it being open like it is
there is enough of a breeze that the summer days don't affect the chickens when they have to stay in and it is easy to winterize if we get very cold like this
past winter.

 

[Mtn Cur]

This might help, I know I will be doing something very close to this because my chickens are roasting right now. 4 th picture down. https://www.backyardchickens.com/web/viewblog.php?id=23092

 

[chics in the sun]

Well, I don't know about the 'visually appealing' part, but here is what I ended up with - I call it my Florida Cracker Coop. The part off to the side was and addition (chicken math strikes again!), and I will be building another one on the front of that addition, just in time to put my two new EE's in there. It will be designed so it can be blocked off until they are big enough to join the big girls, which I think is a handy feature. The top loft area has a roost in it that they love, and I have pieces of vinyl I put up to cover that area if we get a big rain storm. I may add another little addition on the back with two solid walls before it gets "cold" here.

nest boxes, which I will be building one more of in the next addition:

(I also usually have a tarp over the addition for shade, and as soon as I have the cash I am going to buy one of those sun-shades to put over the whole thing.)

 

[Red_Bowman]

Mine is probably too small for what you are wanting, but it might provide ideas I guess on open air architecture.. here's my page: https://www.backyardchickens.com/web/viewblog.php?id=64191-suburban-chicken-tractor

Red

 

[midd2005]

ours is maybe a little more closed in than what you are thinking, but since we get some rain here and sometimes wind, i wanted them to have a somewhat closed in "coop" area. it's completely open in the middle though. the whole thing is about 16' long and 5' deep. half of it is roofed and half of it is open. the wood frame is up on cinder blocks and we ran an approximately 18" apron of hardware cloth around it. if i were to do it over again, i might roof a bit more since they only venture out to that open part in the late afternoon. we have seven 6 week olds in there right now. it's cool enough, but it also doesn't really go over 90 and humid here.

i'd like to think it's reasonably visually appealing.