Our playhouse chicken coop

[sheila3935]

So cute! Wish I would have got a good deal on mine but paid 279.00 at rural king for mine. I just bought it and its not up yet but my DD and I went in together for our bantams. She has 2 Bearded Belgian D'Anvers and I have 3 bantam cochins. I bought the house and she is going to buy the run. When we get it together we will post pics. May be awhile we have freezing rain today and snow coming tomorrow.

 

[papschmitty]

Last weekend we took a break from our extreme coop makeover to build an outdoor brooder. Our girls are due to hatch any day now and DH suddenly decided he'd rather brood on the deck instead of the guest bathroom. I still need to take pictures of that masterpiece! Today he worked on building the nest boxes.

We used the open doorway that faces the house.

There are two boxes stacked on on top of the other. There's also a nice little overhand to keep the area covered. The access door swings open to the right and there's a spring to make it close by itself if it accidentally gets left open.

Here's the lock to the access door. We used a caribeener that's attached by some rope. Is this sufficient to thwart the raccoons?

It's kind of hard to see but this is looking into the top nest box from the access door. There's a lip on the front and the back to keep bedding and eggs from being kicked out.

There was still some space left above the door so DH built a sliding little door thing to add extra ventilation when needed. We'll be covering it with hardware cloth when we do the rest of the windows.

 

[papschmitty]

Today, DH sealed the roof and used an old crib to build the human access door to the run. It's spring loaded to stay closed. That way if one of the kids forgets to close the door, the chickens won't escape. So creative! My 2 year old son loves shutting himself in the run.

 

[wannabchick]

Totally awesome..love all of it

What a cool door to the run
Xoxox

 

[M To The Maxx]

 

[drumstick diva]

You need some hardware cloth over the run, almost any predator could fit in those size openings.

 

[chickerdoodle]

Absolutely darling coop!

You asked for my thoughts so here I go:

The "people door" attached to the run may not be strong enough to thwart some predators --raccoons are really strong and chew and try to tear coops, climb, and will work as a team so I'd ask your husband if the door slats would keep out a few smart, strong raccoons.

The lock on your door might be OK. The rule is that if a two year old can open it so can a raccoon--so ask your son to see if he can open it!

As for the run--the welded wire is great however raccoons do gang up and frighten the chickens until one chicken gets too close to the fence and then they'll literally grab right through the wire and tear them apart (horrible, but true). It is recommended to have no larger than 1/2" hardware cloth at least 2 1/2 feet high on the sides. Completely locking up you girls helps a lot but some raccoons will hunt during the day when they are short on food--especially when they have young to feed.

I found that security is paramount and it takes a lot of preparation to have it be a "Fort Knox" coop. If you have mink or weasles in your area your entire coop needs to have no opening bigger than 1/2"!!

If you get a bit of rain or snow you may wish to cover at least part of your coop. You can just use a tarp if its infrequent.

So my thoughts are you have a darling coop but it just needs a bit more security. Aren't you glad you asked??

 

[papschmitty]

We haven't started predator-proofing yet. I know that the spaces in the cattle panel are too big by themselves. I asked DH about the crib slats and he thinks they're pretty strong. They seem to be a wood/plastic resin. We'll be lining the entire run with some level of welded wire. We have quite a bit of wire fencing that has openings that are about 2x4 inches big. We also have an entire roll of chicken wire. I know predators can tear right through the chicken wire. If we put the 2x4 fencing AND the chicken wire, do you thing that would be sufficient to keep coons out or should we just bite the bullet and use the more expensive 1/2 inch hardware cloth? We'll definitely be covering the coop windows with the 1/2 stuff. We live outside of Seattle so rain is a constant companion. We're going to cover the run with corrugated plastic and my husband might try to use some sort of gutter system to collect water for the chickens. We're kind of making this up as we go along. I love having a handy husband!

Don't worry, I love the feedback so keep it coming! We're total chicken newbies.

Tomorrow we're taking a road trip to bring the girls home.

They just hatched so we still have some time to work on the coop. Next on the list is either the chicken door or the roost and poop tray.

 

[Spudd dud]

Quote:
I've got to admit that's a spectacular idea for the man door to the run!! And it looks amazing!

I agree with chickerdoodle though. At least cover the run with 2x4 weld wire and I probobly would staple some fencing to the inside of the man door.

Looks good,

Spudd dud