post your chicken coop pictures here!

[cabinchicky]

I'm looking for suggestions on a coop for 12-15 LG Cochins. Or what Cochins will need to survive.

They are show and breeding stock

They will have an outside run, and with my experience so far with my LF cochins I shouldn't need anything on the top since they don't fly much, and if one gets out it can live with my free rangers for a while.


I will also look at websites that you can buy coops from but I would prefer not.

The average square footage needed inside a coop is 4-6 square feet per LF bird With 15 birds, you'll be at 60-90 square feet of floor space. If you'll be breeding for show quality though, you'll probably want to break that down into several mating enclosures where you'll place the rooster with 2-4 hens to collect eggs. You won't find any pre-fab coops that will fit your needs... and most of them are garbage anyways. I'd recommend that you go to Lowes or Home Depot or similar and just buy a ready to go shed. You can modify it to add windows and ventilation as well as sub-dividing the inside to suit your needs exactly.

Yup very good idea, find a shed or build one if you are able. If you can go bigger as well. Extra room is always a plus.

 

[gpeters3]

Ok, finished installing the horizontal nipples. Here are a few pics from the experience. Tried to get a few shots of the turkeys drinking. They are about half the size they will be right now so they will be using the horizontal nipples for sure, eh? I can't imagine a simpler or cleaner way to handle feed and water. I am immensely happy with the design so far. They can't perch above the feeders so they stay clean and even if they figure out how to perch on the pipe they can't hurt it.





Here is a nipple installed with the larger channel on the bottom.


Here is the coop side of the assembly with 5 vertical nipples and 4 horizontal nipples evenly spaced between the vertical ones. I had 2 chickens on my back (literally) while attempting to take this pic They just stepped off the perch onto my back like they owned the place. The assembly is made of one 10' length of 4" pvc with one 90 degree elbow connecting 2 halves (5' each) with a non glued cap for filling and threaded plug at the bottom end for cleaning as needed.


On the barn side is the filler tube with cap and sight gauge for filling and checking water level. The whole assy holds about 3.5 gal of water and, so far, looks like a week supply based on what I've seen thus far. I have a 2 gal pail to fill it with and it only takes 3 trips (can't pour from a ladder with it full) when completely empty so 3 buckets of water per week doesn't require a fancy auto fill system IMHO


I missed the shot of the larger production red trying to drink from the horizontal nipple but she checked it out and got some water from it.


If, like my son mentioned he is used to, some of you have chicken chickens, the solution is to spend time with them. Mine were afraid of me till I started working on the coop and hand feeding them corn with the kids. Now look at them When I was on my knees working I had 4 or 5 right in my face checking out everything I did but I think it was the water leak mostly got their attention. These guys (gals) were pecking my foot and leg so I grabbed a shot. Right now the production reds and barred rock are queen of the hill but the turkeys will probably take over later when everybody has to look up (literally) to them I think I may have one tom. we'll see how he behaves once he's a man. I've heard they are not overly aggressive but will take over leadership. In that case I might just keep him around for fun unless he gets too noisy like the roosters were. Don't want the neighbors to notice them.

 

[Sylvester017]

Everyone is making such nice progress and here I am not having done anything on my coop in a few weeks

My dad's been busy with other stuff though.

We have all the walls up and the roof shingled but we need doors, nest boxes, windows, and to clapboard the sides. We just kinda stopped.

Dad may be waiting for you to try initiative on some of the parts you actually can do yourself? Sometimes dads feel sorry for your struggling and chime in to help. GL!

 

[OurFirstLadies]

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The coop is an old shed I had that needed some updating and patching. I put in a new plywood floor and glued linoleum over it for easy hose out and clean up. I used old Florida dairy milk crates for nesting boxes and an early Florida Citrus ladder for roosting bars. All ladders and roosting bars are on stainless steel hinges with stainless chains so can lift then up and out of the way for easy clean up. I am going to add a droppings catcher under their roosting ladder but may need to rearrange as they are roosting on top of their nesting boxes instead of the ladder at night. I wondered if it was because it is just under the window and they are scared of predators. Any ideas? I could do external access boxes under the window instead which would be more convenient anyway. I have a drop ramp door that goes out to their 12 by 18 foot run. I added a 6 head watering system with three heads inside and three outside and two automatic PVC feeders but they only eat out of one of them so I am going to move the other one to another corner as they seem to like eating in the corner. Outside I have two large limbs and stumps from a tree a neighbor cut down for roosting and they love those. I also made then a chicken swing which they are just getting old enough to use at 6-8 weeks old. I also added a couple of lawn chairs and table for us to enjoy morning and evening showings of "chicken theatre". For fun we went with an Americana theme and I blew up several old photos of my grandfather, uncles and father (1930s-50s) with chicks, hens and even a duck when they were young, stuck them in some 8x10 frames I had laying around and have ancestral chicken art to remind me of family and our chicken heritage! This has been a blast. Start to finish was 3 weeks and because I had most everything, I have less than $500 in our whole start up including 9 pullets, 1 accidental roo, feed, waterers, coop and run! I don't think, even free ranging them most of the day, that I would want to put many more than 10 in there even though that's more than 6.4 ft each and 18 ft each in the run.

 

[SilkieChickStar]

If only silkies you should have room. Hopefully you won't need to keep them warm in a rough winter.

If it got bad id bring them inside, however I live in a subtropical climate so we don't have a true winter really. The coldest winter night would be about 10 degrees Celsius (50 farenheight)

 

[cabinchicky]

If only silkies you should have room. Hopefully you won't need to keep them warm in a rough winter.

If it got bad id bring them inside, however I live in a subtropical climate so we don't have a true winter really. The coldest winter night would be about 10 degrees Celsius (50 farenheight)

Ok I am jealous somewhat. 50 is a low! I am here in Ohio where it is down in the 30s again. We had to fire up the heater. Good luck with your silkies!

 

[MeepBeep]

If only silkies you should have room. Hopefully you won't need to keep them warm in a rough winter.

If it got bad id bring them inside, however I live in a subtropical climate so we don't have a true winter really. The coldest winter night would be about 10 degrees Celsius (50 farenheight)

Ok I am jealous somewhat. 50 is a low! I am here in Ohio where it is down in the 30s again. We had to fire up the heater. Good luck with your silkies!

Yeah no kidding, we had a frost advisory in the Chicagoland area last night...

 

[DollarChickens]

Maybe the picture will load, the hens love their new home! Made of 2 15' trampoline frames.

 

[SilkieChickStar]

Ok I am jealous somewhat. 50 is a low! I am here in Ohio where it is down in the 30s again. We had to fire up the heater. Good luck with your silkies!

Yeah no kidding, we had a frost advisory in the Chicagoland area last night...

I don't even know what this city would do if it ever got that cold here LOL. Thankfully it never snows because people don't even seem to drive too well in the rain

 

[canehdianchick]

I don't even know what this city would do if it ever got that cold here LOL.  Thankfully it never snows because people don't even seem to drive too well in the rain

Google Kitimat snow fall of 2015 and take a look... 6 ft in 24 hours... Oh god please no lol