Our first chicken coop

[bandit01]

By the way, we lined the poop tray with some plastic wallboard material from lowes. It's impermeable and will not allow moisture to get I the plywood.

 

[21hens-incharge]

Holy macaroni!!! That is some coop you have got there.

Super nice work. You should be very proud.

 

[bandit01]

Thank you. I'm no carpenter, but I had a couple of friends to lend a hand and help with ideas.

 

[Katbird01]

As one of Bandit's "helpers" I can tell you it was/is a lot of work. And money. More money than I ever thought I would be spending on chickens.

But when it's finally all done we will be really proud of it.

 

[aart]

That's a nice big coop and run!!
You will love the roost board with PDZ.

Couple things you might want to think about tho...chicken wire will keep the chickens in the run, but it will not keep predators(except birds) out.

Might want to add a couple of big vents as high as possible in the ends of the coop and cover them(and all the windows) with 1/2" hardware cloth attached with screws and washers.

 

[21hens-incharge]

Thought I would pop back in and let you know what I think are the most awesome features of your build...
1. All the light is super great.
2. The size of course. When I had mine in a smaller set up than I have now they would pick on each other. Size matters IMO.
3. Barn style looks cool and the windows will certainly help keep it fresh.
4. Poop board is built wonderfully. It should be a snap to clean.
5. The flooring you chose is extra nice to clean up. I spend about 30 minutes total doing a full clean out on mine. ( keeping cost down this time I used porch paint on the floor. Would have rather had linoleum. )

 

[Katbird01]

We do have vents to put in, hopefully today. And we'll put hardware cloth over the windows eventually. Unfortunately, it's going to be too expensive to put hardware cloth on the run. I think we're okay from most predators except for snakes.

 

[aart]

We do have vents to put in, hopefully today. And we'll put hardware cloth over the windows eventually. Unfortunately, it's going to be too expensive to put hardware cloth on the run. I think we're okay from most predators except for snakes.

You could cover the chicken wire on the run with some 2x4 welded wire, cheaper than HC and probably fine for most daytime predators....ya never know what predators you might have until you get chickens.