Planning a man sized A frame coop and run suggestions and tips welcomed please

[IdyllwildAcres]

Not chicken math......roosts, feeder, waterer, nests...everything you need for even a few birds...and well, yeah, chicken math too.

I have an area in my coop that I temporarily wall off for brooding/growing out chicks.....it's 4x6 of the 16x6 coop, it's tight in there.
It has a 1' deep roost board leaving 3' for me to navigate, board is set low with a concrete block for step up and down without them crashing into temp wall.
I've seen tons of folks having difficulty trying to kit out their 4x4 or 4x6 coop....sh!t just doesn't fit well.

Go at least 6x10, that 4' is a bear.
Is the outside covered space for you or the birds or both?

Easier to fix on paper for sure...or tape the space off on a floor somewhere, start fitting the gear in there....
...someone suggested using a 5 gal bucket to represent each chicken when mocking up spaces, an excellent suggestion IMO.

The outside space is for the birds, I plan to have the food and water out there, I agree bigger is better I have never looked at something I have built, garage, house etc and said to myself it should have been smaller...


Thanks

Gary

 

[tmarsh83]

Not chicken math......roosts, feeder, waterer, nests...everything you need for even a few birds...and well, yeah, chicken math too.

I have an area in my coop that I temporarily wall off for brooding/growing out chicks.....it's 4x6 of the 16x6 coop, it's tight in there.
It has a 1' deep roost board leaving 3' for me to navigate, board is set low with a concrete block for step up and down without them crashing into temp wall.
I've seen tons of folks having difficulty trying to kit out their 4x4 or 4x6 coop....sh!t just doesn't fit well.

Go at least 6x10, that 4' is a bear.
Is the outside covered space for you or the birds or both?

Easier to fix on paper for sure...or tape the space off on a floor somewhere, start fitting the gear in there....
...someone suggested using a 5 gal bucket to represent each chicken when mocking up spaces, an excellent suggestion IMO.

Couldn't agree more. 4' is tight. I've come to value flexibility more than anything in my time (short as it may be) keeping chickens.

4' just limits you so much.

 

[Howard E]

I took a stab at designing an A frame coop a few months back thinking it would be simple and functional:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/1120950/adding-ventilation-question/20

I eventually gave up on it. To get the roof high enough and door large enough, it had to be pretty big. For the same amount of materials, it was a short step to a Woods house, which is far and away a better option. Maybe the best I've seen to date......which is why that is what I decided to go with.

 

[ABchickenguy]

I built my shed style coop and run with dimensional lumber lengths just because that is the space I had available to me. It ended up being 8 x 16 with the coop 4 x 8. If I had more space I would have made the coop 6 x 8 or even 8 x 8. The coop size works fine for my 6 hens and would work for 10 as the water and feed are outside in the run. The coop is insulated for our northern winters here so that made construction a little more involved but the roof height in the run is 8 feet at the peak to accommodate my 6'2" height easily. I don't have plans but have daily pictures of the construction if that would help you out. It took me 3 weeks to build but would have been close to two if it wasn't insulated.
Here are a couple of pics.

 

[Folly's place]

Nice coop! Mary

 

[Folly's place]

My coop started with an old original coop, turned into a garden shed, then back into a coop, moved onto an old workshop building foundation. Then, chicken math happened, so an annex was added to the north side. Then the run area was roofed in, with solid walls on the north side and south and east walls of hardware cloth/ woven wire, good doors, and a hardware cloth divider through the new roofed area. This is now about 24' x'16' total, divided into four sections, all on that old foundation. Love it! In winter, two layers of clear plastic over the lower 6' of the south and east walls, plenty of protection. Mary

 

[IdyllwildAcres]

Why not go 8x10 for the coop?
4' width can get tricky fitting things inside ans still have room for birds to jump/fly down from roosts.

Now I am thinking of flipping the coop the opposite direction and it being 8 wide and 6 deep, that would still leave me some space outside the coop for the water and feed, both will be in 50 gallon drums

 

[ABchickenguy]

 Now I am thinking of flipping the coop the opposite direction and it being 8 wide and 6 deep, that would still leave me some space outside the coop for the water and feed, both will be in 50 gallon drums

Can you post a rough sketch so we get a better idea what you are planning? Then perhaps you could get some more ideas from people who have tried different things out and save you some headaches. Just a thought.

 

[aart]

Quote: There ya go....keep tossing ideas around.

Now sometimes bigger is NOT necessarily better...why the heck would you need 50 gallons for feed and water for the small flock that coop will hold?
30 gallon metal can holds a months worth of fresh feed(both and scratch) for my 15-18 birds...and keeps the mice out of it.
Maybe a 50 gallon drum of you are harvesting rainwater tho.

 

[IdyllwildAcres]

There ya go....keep tossing ideas around.

Now sometimes bigger is NOT necessarily better...why the heck would you need 50 gallons for feed and water for the small flock that coop will hold?
30 gallon metal can holds a months worth of fresh feed(both and scratch) for my 15-18 birds...and keeps the mice out of it.
Maybe a 50 gallon drum of you are harvesting rainwater tho.

I may go smaller, I will look at 25-30 gallon trash cans but the main reason is I want to be able to leave for a week and not worry. I am going to make egg rolling nest boxes using paint trays that can be accessed from outside the coop so a neighbor can get the eggs Like this: