Our Coop and Run

[Mobile785]

It took a little longer than expected to build as I'm certainly not a carpenter and did not have a solid set of plans to go off of. I looked at several different designs found few different plans and then modified then to my vision and liking... Anyway I still have the trim work to do and touch-up some paint but it is 99% complete and good enough for the "MartHens" to move in.... Our coop is connected to our Hubitat SmartHome, the last 2 pictures are of the custom automatic door. I used an old set of server rack rails for the door to glide up and down on with a liner actuator connected to a 2 channel MHCozy relay to raise and lower the door. The door has an Open/Close sensor which also reports the temperature inside the coop. Lastly it has safety device at the bottom of the door that will reverse direction if a chicken or anything else comes in contact with it as its closing.

Here's the pics we took from start to finish.

 

[Chipmunk Chicks]

Looks pretty awesome! Keep us updated how it goes with cleaning, maintenance and the smart features please!

 

[Mobile785]

Looks pretty awesome! Keep us updated how it goes with cleaning, maintenance and the smart features please!

Thank you. The chickens have been out there for just about 3 weeks now, I just finally had a minute to post. So far cleaning has been fairly easy. Under the roosting bars is a tray I made and it's filled with Stall-Dry. Just about everyday we take 2 to 3 minutes to go out and use a cat litter scoop and pick out all the mess from the stall dry.

So far the Hubitat integration has been awesome. Since They've been out there the door opens each AM at sunrise. Now for around the first 2 weeks I checked to make sure they were all in before manually activating the door close command, they are normally all in by 10 minutes after sunset so I have the door set to close 12 minutes after sunset.

 

[South Dakota Guy]

It took a little longer than expected to build as I'm certainly not a carpenter and did not have a solid set of plans to go off of. I looked at several different designs found few different plans and then modified then to my vision and liking... Anyway I still have the trim work to do and touch-up some paint but it is 99% complete and good enough for the "MartHens" to move in.... Our coop is connected to our Hubitat SmartHome, the last 2 pictures are of the custom automatic door. I used an old set of server rack rails for the door to glide up and down on with a liner actuator connected to a 2 channel MHCozy relay to raise and lower the door. The door has an Open/Close sensor which also reports the temperature inside the coop. Lastly it has safety device at the bottom of the door that will reverse direction if a chicken or anything else comes in contact with it as its closing.

Here's the pics we took from start to finish.

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Great job! Having recently built ours with my wife I know how much work goes into building a coop from the ground up.

 

[aart]

Looks pretty good!
Not sure how 'smart' it was to build smack dab against the house tho.

Will you be adding some waterproof roofing to coop, run, and nests?
What kind of ventilation is there, other than the windows?

Oh, and.... Welcome to BYC! @Mobile785
Where in this world are you located?
Climate, and time of year, is almost always a factor.
Please add your general geographical location to your profile.
It's easy to do, and then it's always there!

 

[Mobile785]

Looks pretty good!
Not sure how 'smart' it was to build smack dab against the house tho.

Will you be adding some waterproof roofing to coop, run, and nests?
What kind of ventilation is there, other than the windows?

Oh, and.... Welcome to BYC! @Mobile785
Where in this world are you located?
Climate, and time of year, is almost always a factor.
Please add your general geographical location to your profile.
It's easy to do, and then it's always there!
View attachment 3525343

It's against a detached garage, but I see what you are saying. Unfortunately that's that only decent and flattest spot in our yard to put it. The other benefit for going there is the bulk of our heavy winds come from the side that the garage is on so the garage is acting as a windbreak.

I just realized that Those pictures were taken before I put the asphalt shingles on, so yes it is now waterproof. It's well ventilated, it has soffits like a house and the side that faces the run is open at the top, can be seen in in a few of the pics. The soffits and run opening are covered with hardware cloth to deter unwanted intruders.

Being new to keeping chickens trying to figure out how much space was needed almost drove me nuts!! I kept seeing so many different specs and different opinions that constantly conflicted with one another... UGH!! Anyway what I've built is the coop is 5' 6" x 6' with 2 roosting bars that are 46" long each. The run is 16' 6" x 6'. We started with 8 and 1 turned out to be a rooster, which we rehomed before we started construction, and now have 7 chickens and that could possibly drop to 6, my wife thinks another one of our Buff Orpingtons maybe a rooster and local ordinances do not allow for roosters where we are unless you have more than 3 acres of land.

Thanks for the info and input, again being new to keeping chickens there's a lot of learning.

 

[aart]

The other benefit for going there is the bulk of our heavy winds come from the side that the garage is on so the garage is acting as a windbreak.

I guess that could be good, tho having a lot of airflow would be good in your climate..
Does it also offer all day shade?

 

[Mobile785]

I guess that could be good, tho having a lot of airflow would be good in your climate..
Does it also offer all day shade?

Yes, it's in the shade for the bulk of the day as well.

 

[rosemarythyme]

Not sure how 'smart' it was to build smack dab against the house tho.

Yeah I was concerned about the same for maintenance reasons (i.e. if repair, painting, etc. ever needed to happen on that garage wall) but I suppose if push comes to shove the entire thing could be moved.

If I was going to have it right up against a structure, I'd use the structure's wall as the 4th wall, but of course that would make it much harder to relocate. And might not be legal in many areas.