Given the time crunch, resulting from my impulsive nature (the research was ongoing for months, but the actual procurement of the hens was spur of the moment), we had to come up with a hen hotel tout de suite.
The plan for the moment is to have something that is mobile. Most actual chicken tractor/ark plans looked to be more complicated than we had time for. We did have a plan for a rather small chicken house that required minimal materials, looked to be fairly quick to build and could be made quite mobile (more on that later).
The unknown quantity was the run itself. Again, it had to be something that could be assembled, disassembled and moved easily. What we came up with was 3ft square panels (except for those that attach to the chicken house for obvious reasons) that connect using corner brackets, bolts and wingnuts. The 3ft square number was based on the width of hardware cloth available and ease of moving the panels. If I were a better builder, all the square panels would be exactly the same and it wouldn't matter how they fit together.
There are still a few kinks to iron out in the attachment of the run to the house and we are working on those this week - too bad work gets in the way of the stuff we really want to do.
Admittedly, phase one is on the small side for 3 full sized hens, but phase two should be complete by the end of this weekend - more panels to increase the size of the run and in a perfect world, we will also have installed the exterior nest box to free up space inside the house.
The materials for the chicken house were 2 sheets of plywood (we used 3/8 inch to keep it lighter weight, but would go with 1/2 inch were we to do it again - at least for the roof), 3 2x4x8ft, shingles for the roof (couldn't get a small enough piece of tar paper), hardware cloth, hinges, clasps, lid stay, broom handle for perches. The run panels are 1x2, hardware cloth and corner brackets. We will be adding handles and wheels so that I can move it myself - it takes two of us to carry it, but it is still very light.
Phase three is a larger house and run. This will be our summer project - in the hopes that our bylaws will be amended very soon and we will be able to erect a permanent coop and run that extends the full length of the side of our house. This would make it easier for us to let the girls range about in the front yard during the day using the current set up.
The plan for the moment is to have something that is mobile. Most actual chicken tractor/ark plans looked to be more complicated than we had time for. We did have a plan for a rather small chicken house that required minimal materials, looked to be fairly quick to build and could be made quite mobile (more on that later).
The unknown quantity was the run itself. Again, it had to be something that could be assembled, disassembled and moved easily. What we came up with was 3ft square panels (except for those that attach to the chicken house for obvious reasons) that connect using corner brackets, bolts and wingnuts. The 3ft square number was based on the width of hardware cloth available and ease of moving the panels. If I were a better builder, all the square panels would be exactly the same and it wouldn't matter how they fit together.
There are still a few kinks to iron out in the attachment of the run to the house and we are working on those this week - too bad work gets in the way of the stuff we really want to do.
Admittedly, phase one is on the small side for 3 full sized hens, but phase two should be complete by the end of this weekend - more panels to increase the size of the run and in a perfect world, we will also have installed the exterior nest box to free up space inside the house.
The materials for the chicken house were 2 sheets of plywood (we used 3/8 inch to keep it lighter weight, but would go with 1/2 inch were we to do it again - at least for the roof), 3 2x4x8ft, shingles for the roof (couldn't get a small enough piece of tar paper), hardware cloth, hinges, clasps, lid stay, broom handle for perches. The run panels are 1x2, hardware cloth and corner brackets. We will be adding handles and wheels so that I can move it myself - it takes two of us to carry it, but it is still very light.
Phase three is a larger house and run. This will be our summer project - in the hopes that our bylaws will be amended very soon and we will be able to erect a permanent coop and run that extends the full length of the side of our house. This would make it easier for us to let the girls range about in the front yard during the day using the current set up.
