Pop Door Ideas

[chicken daddy]

This is my first post! I just joined the forum today. My wife and I are getting our first chickens in about two weeks and in the meantime I am building the coop and run. The coop will be 3'WX4'LX3.5'H. It will be raised 2.5' off the ground with a part of the run under it. I want the pop door to open to the ramp directly under the coop, but I am having trouble coming up witha design for the door. I was thinking about having it on some sort of slide with a rope to open and close it or possibly just on a hinge that I can pull open from the outside. My concern is that the area around the door on the floor will be blocked with litter and wont close all the way after a short while. I also want to raise the ramp in case any dasterdly predators make thier way into the run I dont want them to have any access into the coop. I was thinking about having the ramp on a draw string to raise and lower it and locking it into the up position witha dow rod or something. Does anyone have anything like this or any ideas to help me make this work. Im pretty excited about getting my chickens. I just want to make sure they are happy, and safe! Thanks

 

[elmo]

Quote:
Welcome to the forum!

Honestly, I personally would never put a pop door in the floor in the first place. Litter will constantly be falling out the door unless you build a substantial lip all around the door frame inside. And in a coop as small as you're building (only 12 square feet, which is only just at the minimum 4 square feet per chicken for 3 birds), you'd be losing at least a square foot of space to the door in the floor. Finally, I really don't think pulling up the ramp would keep a critter who got into the run from getting into the coop through the pop door. You'll still need to lock or securely latch the pop door to keep your chickens safe.

This is the kind of door I used in my raised coop, and it works fine:

It opens drawbridge stye, hinged on the bottom. I can open and close it from the people access door in the coop without stepping into the run. And the open door makes a kind of perch that the chickens fly up to and enter the coop. No ramp required.

There's also and interior sliding door (because I'm a belt and suspenders kind of worrier):

You can't see it, but the pop door is there on the right side of the coop.

I forsee another issue with the coop dimensions you're considering. A coop that's only 3 1/2 feet tall may be seriously challenged in the height department. A full grown standard chicken is at least 18 inches tall (possibly even taller). If you're going to put in a roost off the floor, you need to account for that height. And then your vents should be up above this level so that cold air won't be blowing on the chickens in the winter. That's hard to accomplish in only 3 1/2 feet.

My raised coop walls are 4 feet tall, then the vents are on top of that. I only have tiny bantams (much shorter than standard chickens), and set the roost at about a foot off floor level. There's only just enough vertical space there as it is.

It's something for you to think about, anyway.

 

[chicken daddy]

Thanks for the ideas elmo. I guess its a good thing I dont have it built yet. I will definitely take all of those tips into account. Thanks again. I appreciate it.

 

[WoodlandWoman]

Since chickens generally need twice as much run space or more than coop space, it works well to have the run extended off to the side of the coop, as well as allowing space underneath. It's very easy to add a chicken door and ramp to the side wall of the coop that way. You can go to the very top of the page and click on "Coop Designs" to get more ideas and see designs like this.

 

[patandchickens]

Quote:
Good, b/c you'd regret it if you did it

By far the best place for a door is in the WALL. It is easier to prevent egregiously-huge amounts of bedding falling out, but most of all, it does not take anything away from usable floorspace in what is already a very small coop.

Seriously, you want your chickens to have as much indoor floorspace as possible for yucky days or days when maybe you don't get out there *quite* at the crack o' dawn to open the popdoor.

Good luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[truebluexf]

I'm going to jump in here with my question, since it's related. We plan to build a 3x5 coop, 3' tall, with space underneath. I plan to have a pop door but never close it, only close the door the under part of the coop, essentially making the area under the coop the first floor of the coop (like their own screened in porch, lol.) We don't have a very cold winter here. I was going to put a slide door in it to close it off for the times we do have cold nights. This way, the chicks can still get out in the morning when I'm not up early to let them out, or go away for a night or two. Our coop could also be made into a tractor eventually with addition of wheels.

 

[Mallory]

Congrats on the birds and coop and

to BYC from Ohio! I am not much help in the way of coop building, but I wanted to say hello.

 

[elmo]

Quote:
The only problem with never closing the pop door is that if any nocturnal predator manages to get into your run, then it's bye bye chickens. It's harder to make a run as secure as a coop, but with diligence and $$$ you can probably come pretty close.

 

[elmo]

Quote:
You're very welcome; hope you find it helpful. By the way, I wanted to share a mistake I made so you can avoid it, too. I cut the pop door in our small coop just at floor level, forgetting to take account the level of bedding. So I had to fix this goof and recut the pop door higher.

I call this model my "oops, coop" because of the number of mistakes I made in it. The first mistake was starting to build it in our garage (we were having a spate of rainy weather), and not figuring out that the coop wouldn't fit through the gate in our fence until I was already 3/4 done. We had to take a whole panel of our fence apart, there was only one panel that could be dismantled separately, and there were other obstructions in that area so that we only barely managed to squeeze through.

Then I built the door to the run shorter than I am so that when I forget to duck, I bonk my head. I sited it where it gets too hot in summer and where it floods whenever we get extended rain (not often, but often enough). At first, I didn't roof the run and regretted it. When I reroofed, the new roof leaked. So I had to redo the roof three times.

If someone else can learn from my mistakes, it makes me feel better about them.

 

[chickensRcute]

I have a pop door that is attached to a handle that I can raise and lower from outside the run. I love the way it works. We made a coop big enough to have my husband stand up in it. I have 17 chickens in this coop and there are 8 nests. Check out my page to see the pictures of the pop door and I hope you enjoy your chickens! Welcome from Colorado!!!!!

If you went on my page too quickly I was adding the pics I told you about. They are on there now.