post your chicken coop pictures here!

[A2kool]

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I made this out of a 4x5 shipping crate , it has 6 nesting boxes. The large front doors open for cleaning. Vinyl flooring for easy cleaning. Slide out Plexiglas windows for cold months.

 

[lovechicks1293]

Gosh, if the shed has a decent roof use it as the coop with the outside area as a connected outdoor pen. Depends on whether the shed has other uses but it would make a great coop. Just add a screened door and a couple screened windows to the shed and it would be so-o-o nice. It'll be work for you guys either way - whether you convert the shed or whether you build a coop on the outside. I like inside coops to keep chicken bedding and roost areas dry from rain leaks. Just be sure to allow open ventilation at the very top even during cold weather - no drafts directly on the roost perches. Either way you build I'm glad Mom allows you the chickens!

we cant build the coop as the shed, that is where we keep the tractor and we dont have enough room in our garage. it would be great though!

 

[Sylvester017]

we cant build the coop as the shed, that is where we keep the tractor and we dont have enough room in our garage. it would be great though!

A word from my experience -- if the coop has to be outside the shed then build a slanted or pitched lean-to roof additionally over the coop to ensure no rain leaks into the coop -- or put a pop-up canopy over the coop with legs buried into the soil to keep it from para-sailing in the wind. Having that extra cover over the coop has saved our nestbox and coop roof from leaking in heavy rains. After a year the cover will probably tear so we just bought a regular tarp and ball ties to fasten to the canopy frame rather than buy an expensive new cover. At the very least tarp over the coop roof but don't shut out ventilation if you know rain is forecast. It's really important to keep the nestbox material dry at all times. So glad to see you planning for chickens - they are very entertaining.

 

[Sylvester017]

I really need to hurry up and finish the new coop or get some materials to expand the current run now before it's done. I think the chickens are starting to suffer from the lack of space

TeeHee - I think if chickens had 25 acres to roam it wouldn't be enough -- just kidding! But they do LUV space with adequate dog houses, shelters, or shrubs to snooze/hide in during the day.

 

[LosPollosLopez]

Nice looking coop.  Lower Rio Grande Valley is about as deep south as you can get, isn't it?  How long have you had your chickens?  Any heat issues?  That deep south I would think a coop with one or two open sides would work well.  I'm up in south Alabama and I'm seriously considering building a coop with at least one almost solid open wall...and we're a lot cooler climate than where you're at.

Is that a 4x8 coop?  Bigger?  How many chickens?  4x8 is just a natural size coop to build for say a half-dozen chickens....sheet goods come in 4x8 size so very little cutting needed.

Best wishes,
Ed

Hi Ed, yes it's very hot here. It's our first coop and we have added more vents. We are also building an attached run. The bottom is going to be the shade but even in the shade and with solar board on top it still gets 100 or more in August. They spent most of the summer out underneath it. The birds are just now 6 months. We have 8 birds in the coop. It is 8 by 8. We will be adding wibdows and screen on the side doors also. It doesn't get cold here so not worried about winter. Good luck with your build.

 

[bruceha2000]

She is healthy she just seems to get an egg in her and then she just pushes it out no matter where she is. But on some days she will set in the nesting box and doesn't lay anything anyways. So everytime she lays it goes to the dogs because I can't sell soft eggs. And I can't afford to keep paying for feed for a free loading slacker. Since I am a kid I don't have any source of income to be able to keep paying for feed for the slackers who don't lay.

Hey, there IS an advantage to being old after all!

I can afford to feed my freeloading slacker because chicken feed is a LOT LOT less expensive than the 6 units of insulin daily for the diabetic cat. The only thing she and the other 2 house cats "provide" is fur and barf on the floor and stuff in the litter boxes. Echo, on the other hand, laid 50 dozen eggs before her "medical issue" cropped up. I can feed her for 4 months for what the 3 cats cost in canned food for a single day. And I bet it is less than that "average per bird" calculation (which can't even account for feeder raids by wild birds, rats, chipmunks and woodchucks) because she is an excellent forager

If your bird is laying ONLY soft shelled eggs, it isn't because she is just shoving them out too fast. She does not have that ability, her shell gland isn't working. I have no idea if that can be self correcting.

Recent coop build out of totally scavenged materials~pallets mainly...so...FREE except for some of the hardware. Even the slide was found curbside.



The "chick" seems quite happy with it! I think I got the ventilation right but the square footage might be a little tight if I add more chicks to it.

Sorry...couldn't resist.

Saw the first picture and thought "a SLIDE for the chickens"??? I gotta tell my friends on the porch, they'll never believe it!
Then I said "Hey wait JUST A MINUTE! I've seen that building before! And that dog too!"
Then I read the rest.

You slay me Bee!!!!!

 

[Beekissed]

Hey...a slide...just think on it a minute. Put some traction on that baby and you've got a neato ladder up to the roosts or to the coop that you don't have to build. And it sure would have people taking a second look when they saw your chicken coop with a slide coming out the side.

Just imagine the images that come to mind...hens sitting on fluffy butts, sliding down out of the coop with wings in the air, yelling, "WHEEEEEEE!!!!!!"

 

[just13nat]

LOL, we've had a few chickens test out the slide on our play set. Not purposely, but were pecking around on the wood and next thing you know, whoosh! Down the slide! One of our Cochins loves to sit in the swings and sway back and forth. The wooden play set is probably used more by our chickens than our kids!

 

[bruceha2000]

@just13nat That is probably why more than one childrens' playset has been converted to a chicken coop

 

[kblod66]

Nice! How many chickens do you have?