Well, almost. It is finished enough so that the older chicks can live in it. We still need to paint it and add a pop door (after we get their run secured.) Here's the construction sequence.
We have these long, narrow storage lockers running along one side of our house. They are 2 and a quarter feet wide. We were originally just going to have the coop contained in the locker, but I decided that it was just too narrow. I wanted my birds to have plenty of space. So we decided to build out from the lockers. To make it easier, we planned the extension to be 8'x8'. That would give a final coop size of 8'x10.25'.
Here's the space as it looked as we were just starting. The locker doors are all closed at this point, but later on we removed the two middle doors.
The floor finished, before getting attached to the locker.
Here is the completed floor and frame. It took us most of January to do this, due to lots of extremely cold weather and rain which limited the time we could work outside.
This weekend was the first time in ages that we had warm, sunny weather, and we took advantage of it, putting in 8-hour days both Saturday and today. And it is none too soon because our first batch of chicks are too big to be living in plastic tubs! As of yesterday evening, we had the roof installed and all three walls up, and the partitions put up inside the locker. I also managed to get hardware cloth up over all vents. Progress pic from late afternoon:
Here's a shot of how we partitioned the lockers:
A photo of the front, sans paint. The pop door is going to be about a foot to the left of the people door. We're also going to cut a small window into the door, and come spring we will need to cut some ventilation lower down.
Roosts, with poop trays underneath. I am going to put in a little ladder or something. We have a automatic water bowl on order, and when it comes in it will be mounted to the center pole there. The flashing is to cover electrical cords and to provide a cover for the water bowl when it gets here.
Chicks in their new pad, checking it out. My husband is making a feeder out of 4" PVC pipe. Until then and until the automatic waterer gets here, they're going to have to use the chick feeders and waterers.
Thanks for looking at my coop brag page!
We have these long, narrow storage lockers running along one side of our house. They are 2 and a quarter feet wide. We were originally just going to have the coop contained in the locker, but I decided that it was just too narrow. I wanted my birds to have plenty of space. So we decided to build out from the lockers. To make it easier, we planned the extension to be 8'x8'. That would give a final coop size of 8'x10.25'.
Here's the space as it looked as we were just starting. The locker doors are all closed at this point, but later on we removed the two middle doors.
The floor finished, before getting attached to the locker.
Here is the completed floor and frame. It took us most of January to do this, due to lots of extremely cold weather and rain which limited the time we could work outside.
This weekend was the first time in ages that we had warm, sunny weather, and we took advantage of it, putting in 8-hour days both Saturday and today. And it is none too soon because our first batch of chicks are too big to be living in plastic tubs! As of yesterday evening, we had the roof installed and all three walls up, and the partitions put up inside the locker. I also managed to get hardware cloth up over all vents. Progress pic from late afternoon:
Here's a shot of how we partitioned the lockers:
A photo of the front, sans paint. The pop door is going to be about a foot to the left of the people door. We're also going to cut a small window into the door, and come spring we will need to cut some ventilation lower down.
Roosts, with poop trays underneath. I am going to put in a little ladder or something. We have a automatic water bowl on order, and when it comes in it will be mounted to the center pole there. The flashing is to cover electrical cords and to provide a cover for the water bowl when it gets here.
Chicks in their new pad, checking it out. My husband is making a feeder out of 4" PVC pipe. Until then and until the automatic waterer gets here, they're going to have to use the chick feeders and waterers.
Thanks for looking at my coop brag page!
