As I have already read, once you get a few chickens, you gotta have more!
I already had one small coop for my layer flock (you can see it to the left of this new coop), and I really wanted to put up a larger coop to house meat chickens. My first coop I bought from a gentleman in Pennsylvania that builds them for a living. It wasn't that expensive, but I thought I could build one myself for a lot less than what I could buy it for. Around here, the Amish community sells Chicken houses, but something the size that I wanted would have cost well about $1200!
We live inside the city limits, but as of now there are no restrictions on raising poultry, so I am going to raise what I can. We have about 1.5 acres of land, and we have neighbors (and dogs) so I really can't let them free range. Luckily my neighbors do not have a problem with the chickens since we share the "wealth" with them. So I finally set my plan in motion to build a larger coop to raise chickens for meat.
We went with an idea (from looking at coops on this site) and just started going from there.
When all was done, minus the new drill set I bought, we spent about $600-700.
The only change I will end up making is moving the nest boxes from inside to the outside of the walls to have more floor space. I still have to run electricity to the coop and finish my raised roosts. I also need to do some trim work to the outside of the coop to "fancy it up".
One day I may get more layers to put in this coop, that is why I put in nest boxes.
I followed this page for the raised roost area, and I liked the idea of the water and food hanging below it.
Ace Coop
I'm thinking of raising 20-30 Cornish in here. Luckily the roost and next boxes are easy enough to move/remove in case I need to adjust for my birds.
For now, I have one of my White silkie roosters in here and two Delaware chicks. Eventually the Delaware chicks will move into the other coop to hang out with the other layers (as long as they are layers and not roosters!). I have another silkie rooster in with the layers. The two silkies were initially given to me in hopes that they were layers. Well.....they ended up both being roosters and did not get along after about a year of "rooming" together. I found this out after I came home from work and saw them both covered in blood. It looked as if someone dumped red kool aid all over them! The one rooster has been living in a pen in the garage until this was built.
I think I am going to keep the rooster in here as security for the meat chickens.
He's very territorial. He'll chase away my wife and kids when he is free ranging! He's even chased away my dogs!
But he knows better than to mess with me!
Criticism and comments are welcomed.
I already had one small coop for my layer flock (you can see it to the left of this new coop), and I really wanted to put up a larger coop to house meat chickens. My first coop I bought from a gentleman in Pennsylvania that builds them for a living. It wasn't that expensive, but I thought I could build one myself for a lot less than what I could buy it for. Around here, the Amish community sells Chicken houses, but something the size that I wanted would have cost well about $1200!
We live inside the city limits, but as of now there are no restrictions on raising poultry, so I am going to raise what I can. We have about 1.5 acres of land, and we have neighbors (and dogs) so I really can't let them free range. Luckily my neighbors do not have a problem with the chickens since we share the "wealth" with them. So I finally set my plan in motion to build a larger coop to raise chickens for meat.
We went with an idea (from looking at coops on this site) and just started going from there.
When all was done, minus the new drill set I bought, we spent about $600-700.
The only change I will end up making is moving the nest boxes from inside to the outside of the walls to have more floor space. I still have to run electricity to the coop and finish my raised roosts. I also need to do some trim work to the outside of the coop to "fancy it up".
One day I may get more layers to put in this coop, that is why I put in nest boxes.
I followed this page for the raised roost area, and I liked the idea of the water and food hanging below it.
Ace Coop
I'm thinking of raising 20-30 Cornish in here. Luckily the roost and next boxes are easy enough to move/remove in case I need to adjust for my birds.
For now, I have one of my White silkie roosters in here and two Delaware chicks. Eventually the Delaware chicks will move into the other coop to hang out with the other layers (as long as they are layers and not roosters!). I have another silkie rooster in with the layers. The two silkies were initially given to me in hopes that they were layers. Well.....they ended up both being roosters and did not get along after about a year of "rooming" together. I found this out after I came home from work and saw them both covered in blood. It looked as if someone dumped red kool aid all over them! The one rooster has been living in a pen in the garage until this was built.
I think I am going to keep the rooster in here as security for the meat chickens.
He's very territorial. He'll chase away my wife and kids when he is free ranging! He's even chased away my dogs!
But he knows better than to mess with me!
Criticism and comments are welcomed.
i built my coop almosttt similar to yours because i liked how nice it went up against the wall. Btw... the poles you used to keep the wired fence in place what are they called?
