Our Coop is almost finished!!!

[LilyD]

Okay I wanted to show what progress we made on our first day working on our coop. We have three of the four walls up and the floor. The fourth wall is going to be a door so that will take a bit more work. The large hole in the back will be where the nesting boxes are going to go.

We still have to put on the roof which will be framed with 2 by 4's and have aluminum roofing. I will post more pictures as we get more completed.

Lily

 

[so lucky]

Hi LilyD, are you attaching your coop to an enclosed run? I wish I was that far along on mine. As a matter of fact, my chicken coop is still in pieces at the lumber yard! Do you know about how much it has cost you so far?

 

[miraclz5]

Very nice! What are the dimensions and how many will you keep in there??? I really like the shape!!! Looking forward to getting started on mine! I designed it myself and it is shaped similarly to yours, just needs to be bigger! LOL

 

[LilyD]

So Lucky

The coop will have attached fencing that is 48 inches tall and will cover probably about 300 square feet with no cover over the top. I can't let them free range unfortunately but would love to if I could because I have a large dog with a high prey drive.

Miraclz5

The coop will be 8 feet by 4 feet when finished but will have 5 18 inch square nesting boxes outside of the coop in the large rectangular hole. I will also be adding four or five removable perches to the inside for roosting so they can use the vertical space as well. I designed the plans for the coop and then my DH looked at the plans and tweaked them so they would actually work and make a building that was not crooked. Hopefully finishing the rest of the outside area should not take more than a morning worth of building and then after that it will just be hanging the feeder and waterer and putting up the fencing.

I am getting 12 chickens and 2 roos. They are Red Sexlinks. They should be here next Friday so I still have some time to get things set up which is good because the fencing that I was going to use is a bit scary and will need to be replaces plus we have some trees to take down. My son is very excited about donating his old tire swing. He is hoping to get some pictures of them using it once they get settled in and a bit older.

 

[gavinandallison]

Quote:
Please buy roll of Bird-X and cover the top of the run, otherwise you stand a good chance of 1. the birds flying out - they can fly up to about 6' and 2. A predator flying down or climbing in, then a nasty mess....

 

[LilyD]

Not sure if I will be able to cover the run because it will be huge I have a large play yard that is at least a 1/4 of an acre large and they will be getting a large portion of this to free roam in. They will be out of the coop when I am home at first, but since I make my own hours and I am home the entire summer that will be a lot of time. If they do tend to fly out of the coop I am okay with clipping their wings until they stop to keep them in. I would rather have them have a large area to roam in than making a small pen with a lid to keep them in.

 

[Chick_In_The_Burbs]

Wow. We've been working on our coop for almost three months now. We just got the shingles done and the first two coats of paint on. I think it was about four weeks before we had three walls... Congratz!

I can't wait to see what it looks like when you're done!

 

[LilyD]

Yeah I was pretty impressed with how much we were able to get done. We are having the great debate here now. DH things that giving the chickens a 10ft by 20ft run will be more than big enough for their needs. I am a firm believer in giving animals as much space as possible so they can roam and be happy. I was thinking more along the lines of 40ft by 20ft. Any thoughts?

 

[Chick_In_The_Burbs]

Quote:
I'm of the thought that bigger is better, granted that there isn't anything else you would be using that space for.

 

[LilyD]

No we had it as a play area for our son when he was really little but now he's 15 and not really in danger of getting hurt if he's not fenced in. Our dog has part of it but I would like to do a large part for the babies when they come in. I figure the better their run the happier they will be.