Chickenlady1978
Hatching
- Jun 15, 2023
- 1
- 2
- 2
I just got crazy and bought a used, but never actually used for chickens, medium sized OverEZ coop for $650. My daughter who lives on our property has a OverEZ replica of a large one, but slightly bigger than OverEZ’s, same plan though, but a 6X8, she bought new from an Amish builder for $2199. She currently has six 9 week old pullets in it and has 7 more chicks ordered for September. That is her plan, 13 chickens total. None are small breeds but none are huge either. She built a 10X20 run with a roof and hardware cloth on it, very protected since we are in the country surrounded by woods. Her husband and her built the run themselves and probably have $1500 into it. Now, I impulsively bought the medium OverEZ coop to have a grow out coop for the 7 new chicks coming in September and then once they are big enough to go into the big coop with the others, I thought it would be a good coop to have should we have a sick hen or a broody hen we need to temporarily separate from the flock. It also could work should we get more than one accidental rooster. It just seemed a good deal for things like that. Now however it is sitting tied to the back of a trailer and hubby wants it off, yet I have no place prepared for it. Has anyone built a reasonably priced run around an OverEZ coop? I am 76 so I don’t have great building talents or energy. Hubby would reluctantly help if I told him exactly what I want, but he’s not going to spend $1500 doing it, it needs to be smaller and easier than my daughter’s run, as it’s not a permanent home for chickens. We do have a LOT of predators here, we see raccoon, opossums and eagles every day, so it does need to be predator proof. We live in northeast Kentucky so we do get snow and cold days but it’s not usually severe or long lasting, I would like the run to have a roof and be covered in hardware cloth with the necessary apron too. What I am struggling with is this coop is setup 10” off the ground and has a tiny door for me to clean it. It also has 2 tiny vents. Hubby bought two additional vent covers to put in more venting near the top. It has one window which would be a pain to open and close so would like to be able to leave it partially open in the summer, it will have hardware cloth but I feel it would be more secure if we built a run around it then beside it as my daughter’s is. I have not seen any good examples of doing this without making a huge run which we don’t want, Has anyone done this or have any ideas or inspirations for me? I can’t ask too much of hubby as he has a very bad back and is just now recovering from cutting the tip of his right pointer finger off on a table saw. He used to be a great DIY guy but is having a hard time maintaining those skills (he is a disabled vet). I see many of the prefab runs on Amazon but they don’t have hardware cloth, they all look as if they have gaps around the doors and worst of all no roofs. My husband did put the metal roof on my daughter’s big run without a lot of difficulty, it was a one day job for him once they had the supplies, however those prefab runs have no way to attach a roof, only a tarp (which is not good here with snow and rain). I’m desperately looking for ideas and inspirations! I need to tell him how I want this done in the next couple of days! Oh, it also will go in our backyard, near the house. I have a bum leg and cannot walk far to tend to the chickens. My daughter’s coop is about 200’ from our house but this one will need to be closer. We are on 20 acres, but it’s Kentucky with lots of hills and hollars. Our backyard has space but then goes uphill steeply with lots of brush and trees. Next to the end of the house is the septic and drainfields. Anyway these are reasons the run cannot be very big. I’m open to ideas and suggestions though….I’ve enclosed pics of our backyard.
