TheMurrayFarms
In the Brooder
Hello all,
This is our first post! We are anxious to share what we have built and hope you have some wonderful comments and suggestions for us. We have spent hours scouring through various threads on construction and have built what we feel work best in our area in Paige, Texas.
Some of the things we have done when building our coop include insulated walls and covered the inside of the walls with OSB, an open soffit design with the openings covered in heavy 14ga 1/2" x 1" galvanized mesh secured with 1 1/4" galvanized 1/4" crown staples. 40 amp 220v electricity is supplied to the coop to run fans and lighting. Our coop is 8x12 with 8x8 sectioned off for the chickens and the remainder used for feed and supply storage. When building the run we felt it was better to way overdo the security features than risk losing all of our young pullets who had already covered the inside of our home with dust! We started the run by drilling holes and setting treated four by four posts about two feet in the ground. After that we ran treated two by sixes along the ground all the way around the run. We followed that with a treated two by four about 3 feet off the ground. For the top we ran a treated two by six with a two by four hog back to make it rigid. We framed the run in such a way it allowed us to secure our wire with long 1 1/4" staples all the way around, and also on top. We used 2x4x 6' tall welded wire from tractor supply. The sides have a layer of 2x4x 4' wire offset to make the holes 1x2" for the first four feet up the walls. We put a single layer of the wire on top for added protection. I forgot to mention that before we started this we laid a 4' run on the ground half in and half out to prevent digging in. After we secured the wire to the outside we formed a 3 1/2" tall curb all the way around the inside and poured it with concrete. Our coop received the same run of wire under it and we went ahead and poured concrete up to the bottom of the wood foundation to prevent any unwanted entrance by predators. We have a HUGE raccoon, opossum, wild hog, and armadillo problem and find it quite satisfying to see where animals try to dig in only to be foiled in their futile attempts.
Enjoy!
This is our first post! We are anxious to share what we have built and hope you have some wonderful comments and suggestions for us. We have spent hours scouring through various threads on construction and have built what we feel work best in our area in Paige, Texas.
Some of the things we have done when building our coop include insulated walls and covered the inside of the walls with OSB, an open soffit design with the openings covered in heavy 14ga 1/2" x 1" galvanized mesh secured with 1 1/4" galvanized 1/4" crown staples. 40 amp 220v electricity is supplied to the coop to run fans and lighting. Our coop is 8x12 with 8x8 sectioned off for the chickens and the remainder used for feed and supply storage. When building the run we felt it was better to way overdo the security features than risk losing all of our young pullets who had already covered the inside of our home with dust! We started the run by drilling holes and setting treated four by four posts about two feet in the ground. After that we ran treated two by sixes along the ground all the way around the run. We followed that with a treated two by four about 3 feet off the ground. For the top we ran a treated two by six with a two by four hog back to make it rigid. We framed the run in such a way it allowed us to secure our wire with long 1 1/4" staples all the way around, and also on top. We used 2x4x 6' tall welded wire from tractor supply. The sides have a layer of 2x4x 4' wire offset to make the holes 1x2" for the first four feet up the walls. We put a single layer of the wire on top for added protection. I forgot to mention that before we started this we laid a 4' run on the ground half in and half out to prevent digging in. After we secured the wire to the outside we formed a 3 1/2" tall curb all the way around the inside and poured it with concrete. Our coop received the same run of wire under it and we went ahead and poured concrete up to the bottom of the wood foundation to prevent any unwanted entrance by predators. We have a HUGE raccoon, opossum, wild hog, and armadillo problem and find it quite satisfying to see where animals try to dig in only to be foiled in their futile attempts.
Enjoy!
