Playhouse coop

[MojoWorkin]

Thank you so much. No hurry, just when you get a chance.

 

[Farmer Brown]

Hope these pics help. Our coop isn't perfect but the DW and I did it all ourselves. I do have minimal construction experience which is usually just enough to get me into trouble.

The egg door. We have 2 nesting boxes for our 5 girls.

We have put on a coat of paint but this is the finished product. We buried hardware cloth 1 foot down and one foot out for predator control. So far so good. Picked up the roofing at Home Depot I think Lowes has it also.

 

[digitS']

Very, very nice!

 

[Farmer Brown]

Thanks!! As long as the DW and chickens are happy with it so am I!!!

 

[gottaknit]

I have the coop in the "original" size (looks just like red w/white trim one in your first link), and keep 4 standard hens in it just fine. I do move it onto fresh grass about once a month, and they "free range" (ie destroy my garden) a couple of hours a day. They are rarely inside the house except for laying and roosting at night.

I fill the house portion about 1/2 way with straw every month or so, which they rearrange to their liking, and I think this adds a bit of insulation (and keeps it much cleaner than in his video!) However, I'm in western Oregon and it rarely drops below freezing.

I'm actually trying to think of a way to make it hold more birds without increasing the footprint.... could I extend the house portion another two feet towards the center? I need room for another roost and a nest box. (The girls are getting a huge permanent fenced-in run later this winter.) Sorry if I'm OT here.

 

[orcasislandchickens]

I have the original small playhouse coop, and buff orpington bantams and I like the combination.

I have said it before and I'll say it again:

If I had it to do over I'd make the house part 3'deep instead of 2 and I'd add a nest box to the outside instead of having just a door there. With the increase in indoor living space it would easily hold 3 standard hens, the interior and roost space would be easier to configure and not interfere with the nestbox, and because the run extends under the house those changes don't alter the amount of run area available.

If you have the extra space, I like that double coop.

Also the vine covered lattice over the hardware cloth does a great job of blocking the chicken hating neighbours view of the run.

Oh and bantam layers come in rhode island red and barred rock too as well as orpington if you want a mixed flock.

 

[MojoWorkin]

Wow Farmer Brown, I really like the larger coop. Thanks for posting the pics. Yours came out very nice.

orcasislandchickens I like yours too. The shingles are pretty.

 

[Firefyter-Emt]

Farmer Brown, I love the coop! In fact, your coop is somewhat close to the design I have, but uses a thought I was thinking about after I built it. After I had made mine, I had thought that it might of been better to build a "fenced box" and use lighter weight walls like you did to keep the expense down and to keep it lighter. Bravo, I love the way your coop came out. One thought for others, is that to make building easy, you could buy a "cheep" (sorry, I had to) screen door, remove the screening, and attach hardware cloth to the inside.

Did you build anything larger than the small clean out door to access the inside of the coop? Any photos of your roost set up? Do you rely on the run side vent for air flow only, or did you also use eve/ridge venting?

 

[Farmer Brown]

Thanks Firefyter-Emt the coop is still a work in progress. I plan too build a door opposite the egg door that will be almost the whole side of the coop for better cleaning.The screen door idea is great and would be far easier and less finicky than my home grown door. Some days it works perfectly others it sticks a little.

As for the venting the roof does have a ridge cap that looks like it will do fairly well and as long as I have power tools I have options.

As for the roost right now it is a tree limb the entire length of the box and the girls seem to like it ok. I will try to get some pics up of these things soon!!!

 

[Village Farm]

We've got 3 barred rocks in the 4x8 coop and they've got tons of room. All 3 snuggle up in the very corner of the roost box on the end of the roost pole. There's probably room for another 6 birds on that pole with room to spare.

Now, our birds don't really spend a moment in the roost box when they're not on the pole. When they're awake, they're either out in the run or wandering all over the yard.

If the chickens spent all their time in the coop, I probably wouldn't keep more than 3-4 in there.

We didn't want to rip all those cedar deck boards so used 1x3 untreated lumber.