Our DIY Coop and Tractors

[ShellyBlanco]

(NE North Carolina) We are new at chickens. Our first flock was purchased in March 2018. It was pretty cold when we purchased our first 10 RIRs, so they were living in an ever expanding cardboard box "condo" in my office and we hadn't built our coop yet. When I noticed their dust baths were all over my office equipment and shelves, I pushed my husband to get their coop built. We looked at several plans online and what was being sold at TSC. I'm glad we went with building our own with our own 2 cents worth added in. After you build a coop or even a tractor, their are always modifications for ease of maintenance and everyday chores of feeding, etc. The chickens personalities have even deemed a few modifications. With all of the room that they have, the 10 RIRs all sleep on the top shelf, which was designed for supplies...not. They are now laying and we have found eggs from the top shelf to the access ladder (like they didn't have time to get to the nesting box, LOL). A few started laying 8/2/18 and little by little they are getting the egg in a nesting box and we at most have had 8 eggs in one day. It is kind of silly how excited we are about it, but like I said, we are newbies. We have noticed that the "girls" are much more apt to jump on our laps for a pet and a hug now, where before most of them scooted away from being touched. No matter how big the coop or tractor, they always want out to free range. We have found that happy chickens are some egg laying machines, so they get their way around here! We just added 22 Cornish Cross for meat in October, 2 Silver Maran and 1 Australorp for the egg/breeding flock. They are all in the little run right now. The ground is too wet right now, so we have the portable coop sitting on blocks and plywood. It works and they love the fresh air and sunshine.

 

[Chick-N-Fun]

Very nice set up!!!! Well done!

 

[ShellyBlanco]

Had to batten down the hatches today on the portable coop and tractor, it's getting ready for several days of thunderstorms here in NE North Carolina. I hear Virginia has been getting it hard all day. I want to keep the tractor portable so I just added white thick plastic with boards rolled into and stapled on the sides. The boards hold down the plastic if the wind gets up and keeps the chickens that I have in there right now dry. I moved the tractor to a little higher elevation where I think the ground should stay dry too. I guess I'll find out later when the rain is coming down. The small portable coop, I elevated onto 1/2 plywood on top of cinder

block, so it is 6 inches off the ground and did the same thing with plastic. Both have 1/2" thick insulation board fastened to the top for shade already, so pretty waterproof. Plastic is not down on the small portable coop or even on the tractor in these photos. It was getting too dark and I was just too tired to come in and get my camera to take some.

 

[ShellyBlanco]

Well...Hurricane Florence preparation and meat birds have us in Coop renovation mode. I never want to go through all of that musical chicken sh*t again. Since we've only been on this land ten months, we are finding out about how and where the property holds water, the ups and downs and lack of any kind of drainage system as the seasons come down upon us. Thank goodness my husband is good at just about everything, lol.

 

[snow5164]

It looks good!
We move our meat birds everyday , they poop an unbelievable amount and dig up the grass.

So I have a suggestion for your roost /shelf ,

Add a 1x3 board on the front of it and they will roost on that and then you can fill the “ poop board “ with sand or pdz to help it dry out and smell less ....

Meatbirds are monsters !! We do 15 grazers every year they grow slower but we’ve had 100% survival

Have fun

 

[ShellyBlanco]

It looks good!
We move our meat birds everyday , they poop an unbelievable amount and dig up the grass.

So I have a suggestion for your roost /shelf ,

Add a 1x3 board on the front of it and they will roost on that and then you can fill the “ poop board “ with sand or pdz to help it dry out and smell less ....

Meatbirds are monsters !! We do 15 grazers every year they grow slower but we’ve had 100% survival

Have fun

Don't I know it! Poop, poop and more poop. But they are funny little characters. It's a movie everyday with them. I have tagged two pullets to try to get eggs from for a while, gonna separate them and put them on free ranging to help them healthwise. Since it is getting cooler here already, I hope they last a while. I'll let one Roo stay a little longer, I love their crow.
We are going to do 24 every year for us to have in the freezer, but next year I want to get the Giant Brahmas. Do you have any experience with them? (Does anyone?)

 

[ShellyBlanco]

We have upgraded the coop for winter and my need to purchase new chicks. We went from this single coop and run.

To this triple coop:

We insulated the outside walls from the inside with cardboard, then covered the exterior with plastic for this year. We have been having some Hawks around, so the laying girls (10 RIRs that are nine months old) are spending more time between the first coop and the tractor. We have a small door between coop 1 and 2 that can be opened (and is now). It had been blocked off for three additions to the flock (an Australorpe pullet, a Cuckoo Maran pullet and a Cuckoo Maran cockerel) that are four months old. The last coop is secured for (2) Buff Orpington pullets, (1) Ameracauna (probably EE) pullet and our 8 month old White Silkie pullet. The inside is not quite finished out the way I want it yet in coop 2 and 3, but I am scouring this site for some good ideas.

 

[paintedChix]

You will find that different weather patterns will affect water/wind movement across your land, too. Also, every change you make above land affects both wind & water movement. I've been in shock over the years at what some "simple changes" caused. We removed a tree line between ours and the neighbor's property - DIDN'T realize how much water that tree line both sucked up and also deflected - until we removed it and had a large amount of rain all at once after having the ground saturated by several smaller, previous storms. Even the new & deeper ditches we'd had dug couldn't handle all the water - & for the first time in 10 years, our front yard, carport w/ steps up into the kitchen & drive way were underwater for hours (part of it for days).

Then on new property - ours was very different for 2018 Hurricanes Florence and Michael as compared to Hurricane Matthew in 2016. During hurricane Matthew - our water table (including our well - which partially silted in and became several feet shallower) shifted. Our "pond" - which has never truly been a pond - actually did fill w/ water but also was a lot shallower due to erosion/run off. But the water it filled with drained much faster this year than the land all around it that was higher! WEIRD. It's been over a week since the last rain storms, but even our sandy pastures are water logged and wet - with standing water everywhere that the soil has gotten amended with pony & chicken manures or worse, where flowing water has shifted that said manure. The guy who was supposed to come over and do some swale & berm work for us never showed up, so that hasn't been done. It would help to spread and slow water as it crosses some areas of our property & would have been able to clear up an area with serious pile of sand from Matthew's 2016 runoff and fill in a large hole that developed in an area that we didn't want it (I've actually been working on those two areas - 1 - 5 gallon bucket at a time... or a Gorilla wagon load at a time).

Not looking forward to this coming "rain event"(s) - many days of rain. Though the forecast looks much better tonight than it did this morning. We, too, have a lot to get done to prepare for all the water. Everything that has doors - has gotten water logged/wet and swollen. Sticking regardless of how fit previous to these storms since August. Have to get several coops/runs better filled with yard debris - have LOTS, just hard work to get it all gathered up and put where we want it... 2 hooped coop - pens (1- 8x8' & 1 - 10x10') were so completely wet as to turn into NASTY, STINKY "quagmires" after the last set of storms that dumped a lot of rain - even though they were originally done in DLM AND held up well during both original Hurricanes is Sept & October. They will both need to be dug out before having more litter added - but with this rain coming and needing to coop some more birds for a bit, at least one of them will be just re-tarped over the flat top, more litter added now and then birds put in it... Just not sure I want to attempt to remove the flat wire, get it hooped/tarped before all the rain moves in - not sure i'd get it done in time...

As the first set of rain hits, I will probably go ahead and process some of the roosters - fewer birds = less damage to the coop/run pens and our freezer will have a nice addition. Might even have to try my hand at grinding up some chicken (though not sure what that would be used for at the moment) - got a Kitchen Aid meat grinder/sausage stuffer for Christmas.

Coops, storage sheds, barns all change on our property. Both on leased/rented places and even since we moved in here. The neat thing is having the ability to make the changes, so that you can make what you have work more efficiently for you.

Nice little coop you have there!