Our little chicken coop in Progress!

[tbatz11]

Wow! That is a LOT of chicks!
I'm so jealous of the coop you're building. I really wish we had the space for something bigger. But our lot is barely a third of an acre.
How many brooders do you have inside? Or are they all in one?

Good luck this weekend!

 

[twfernandez]

@tbatz11 , we're on 1 and 1/3rd acre, approximately, and the space/landscape has certainly been a defining factor in placement and size. So, the new Isa's are only about a week old, versus nearly a month old on the EE's - as such, we're keeping them in separate brooders for now until the new girls get a little bigger.
To be fair, our "brooders" consist of one large box and one large tub, currently in my small shed with a heat lamp for the younger girls. I'll post a pic this afternoon for sure!
Thanks for the well-wishes, I think I've figured out what to do design-wise with the expansion, so it should go pretty smooth.

 

[whitney556]

We have a buff oprington hen and she is one of my favorites out of our bunch. She such a sweet little chicken. I really,really want an EE or two, but we really don't need to get more chickens lol. It's seriously hard to hold back the urge to get more!

 

[barkinghills]

Good job with your coop! I so wish I was handy, but then I wold probably have 200 chickens if I could build more coops! Reading about your adventures with chicken math make me feel better about my own…I ended up with about 30+ chicks this year, including a dozen cute little bantams…and I already have a flock of over 20 on our one acre chicken hill. Now I'm thinking of converting a little-used shade structure into a large henhouse.

I got three polish this year, and they are really cute and fun. I recommend one for Sue.

 

[twfernandez]

@whitney556 and @barkinghills - you guys hit the nail on the head! Sue has already decided she wants at least one polish(for the cute hair-do) - and I really want a Buff Orpington!

I finally got all of my lumber today, so work shall resume on the coop shortly. Sorry I still haven't posted pics of the new girls - will get them online soon!

Thanks,
T&S

 

[twfernandez]

Hello again everyone!

Just wanted to put together a quick update - I didn't get nearly as much done this weekend as I wanted to, but I'm still .. on track .. I think.

With all of the chicks growing so quickly, I know I need to hurry up and build, but I really didn't want to wait until after the siding was up and everything was painted and then decide we needed to expand - so we went ahead and framed in said expansion.
In trying to decide how much bigger we wanted the hen-house to be, I was thinking of just adding 2 feet, making it 8x10 - but, if we go 4', the extra space will be nice, and with OSB and siding sheets coming in 4' sections, well - we decided to go for 10x10.

We decided to have the "rear" half of each wall mirror the "front" half - this way, my nest boxes will still be center, and we won't have one window offset from everything else.



Framing is finished for the front and rear wall, floor is cut and hung - the weather pretty much stopped me at that point, but I'm hoping to get the interior walls cut and hung in the next couple of days; once that is finished, I'll be back where I left off last weekend, ready for painting, hardware cloth and doors(not necessarily in that order).
I'm not sure if I'll buy two more of the windows to make 5 glass windows total - instead, I think I'll repurpose the third window that I had purchased originally, installing glass windows on this wall, which faces the house(north), and one on the window over the pop-door.
For the south wall, We would still have the "windows" cut out and screened in, but I could just make an awning style hinged door for the openings, that way we can still open them up for plenty of ventilation.
On the other hand, I might just get the extra windows, since they are relatively inexpensive, and they would look nice.

This is just a color-coded shot for the fun of it. Originally, the hen-house was supposed to be 4x10, highlighted in green.
We were planning on 10 ~ 12 chickens.
We ended up starting off with 18(17 now, we lost one the first week) - so, we decided to expand the hen-house to 6x10, highlighted in red.

Naturally, we fell in love with a small batch of Isa browns, and brought home 10 more chicks - so, we decided to expand again, 10x10, highlighted in purple.

Chicken math. I think I'm starting to understand.

Our newest additions!



And of course, the lovely ladies that started it all! These gals are very quickly outgrowing their "brooder," as you can see - in fact, I caught two of them roosting on the top of the box, so I had to throw together a quick screen! :-( I feel bad having them cramped up, so if I don't get the hen-house ready by this time next week, I'll be moving everyone to the larger shed on the property and setting up something temporarily - but again, I'm optimistic about the pace, and weather permitting, we should make good progress in the next couple of days,
Will continue to update as the build progresses!

Thanks all!
-T&S

 

[tbatz11]

The new babies are so cute!!

I have a question though, why don't you use chick waterers? The dishes in there now look like they have poop in them which can make them sick.
I got mine for only a few dollars each.
Also, are you Sure you can get the coop done in a week or so? Weather has the potential to delay building plans, and the chicks look pretty cramped in that box. I took me and Mike only a few hours to build our 2'x4' brooder. We thought we'd get the coop done in just a few weeks at the rate we were going, but then someone died and my husbands hours changed to nights, and the weather got cold. All i'm saying is that you can't be 100% sure on when you'll be done, and They'll be much happier in a larger space until then.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[twfernandez]

@tbatz11 - I agree on both counts.

My schedule has not been as accomodating of the build as I would like - so I am most certainly not sure I'll be able to finish this week; or even next for that matter.
As such, yesterday I built a 5 x 4 'brooder' in our larger shed and got the girls transferred - they are much happier in the larger space! They were running and flying(to the extent they are able) and taking dust-baths like crazy!
This will also take some pressure off of me, as I've been stressing out about finishing the coop in time!
As far as better water dishes, that's something I've been meaning to pick up for the last two weeks, and just keep missing my chance to get to the local store; that said, I change their water multiple times per day to try and avoid letting it get too dirty. I'll tell you what, though, they can muck up their little water dish pretty quickly!
So, now that the bigger girls have the larger space, I figure I have a little extra time for building - my hope is that by the time the big girls are able to move into the coop, the littler ones can move into the new brooder - then we can take our time getting them integrated.
Will update as we go!

Thanks,
T&S

 

[tbatz11]

Mine did the same when we put them in a bigger brooder, it's so fun watching them fly around isnt it?!

While browsing on here I saw that a lot of people hang their food and water. I did that with their food and it actually helps a LOT. They still spill food of course, but no poop or shavings get in it. I really want to do the same with the water but the container i have is plastic so if i poke a hole in it all the water will come out the bottom. So far all the waterers that i've seen with handles are too big to put in my brooder. But since yours is so big you can just put a 2x4 in there and hang a large waterer from that. I bet it would save a lot of trips to the shed during the day. (sorry if I come across pushy, I really am just trying to help. I'm not so good with people, thats why I have pets =)

 

[twfernandez]

Just wanted to post a couple of pics of the girls larger brooder:



It's certainly not the prettiest thing I've ever built, but they needed more room - and quickly - so I scrapped together a 4x4 1/2' "brooder"

The girls are much happier in the larger space, they're going to be staying in the larger shed until I can finish building their coop.




They're growing up so fast!

Sue has been giving them buckwheat noodles as a treat - now, whenever she walks into the shed, they get all excited! It's great!!
Will update later this week as the build progresses.

ttyl,
T&S