Planning "Hobbit" Playhouse Coop Conversion Project

[piopiochix]

Hi! We've been all over the place with thinking through chicken coop designs, and I am thinking of taking on a fun, small chicken coop conversion project using a free used playhouse I'm getting. I thought I'd share the idea here in order to crowd source suggestions or "watch out for" before I take it on. About my situation: we live in the suburbs of the California San Francisco bay area, coastal (aka temperate weather never freezing, though foggy/moist) so the plan would be this would fit max 4 chickens, we do not have chickens yet. Picking it up tomorrow so I'll have a better sense of dimensions then but from my research the playhouse dimensions are likely about 43" wide x 60" long x 50" peak height. If we don't use it as a coop then my son scores with a "new" playhouse

I'm thinking 2 roosting bars going lengthwise, trying to add a nesting box externally, and then wondering if the circular opening could be turned into the clean out door or is it too small or awkward to realistically clean out the litter? Otherwise need to cut into the backside lengthwise to make a clean out door and then enclose the circle opening. Will cut into the upper area of the playhouse to add ventilation. Thinking of putting it on a 4' tall platform and then using hardware cloth to enclose the below the coop as part of the run, and then building the run either off the backside or off the tall side. Thinking food/water would just live in the run and having an automatic door. OR we could build the run around the coop and just have the coop inside of a fully predator proofed enclosure instead of building a run off of the coop.

Thoughts? Ideas? Good idea? Bad idea?? Thanks! Have loved the inspiration on the chicken coop

 

[Penpal]

You need your roosting bar to be above the door. I'm not sure you can do that.

You only need one bar. As a general rule you want 12" of roost for each chicken. But, it also depends on how big the chickens are.

I like have the coop within the fencing so you are going crazy with predator proofing with only the fencing.