post your chicken coop pictures here!

[Sylvester017]

actually is beige

As I looked at the picture I wondered if it were a cream-white, off-white, or yellowish-white. It still has the appearance of an attractive lightness to it with just a touch of trim. Just love it!

 

[Peggy O]

Glad you figured out chicken math before it hit! And that you recognize that what the coop makers claim for capacity is a joke. I swear, they must look at battery hens stuffed in cages to calculate capacity. And why don't they put windows in them? Unless one is up at the crack of dawn every day (or has a photo sensor controlled door) the birds are in the dark. If 12-14 hours of light a day is what it takes to keep them laying consistently, I can't imagine that is a good thing. Your kit coop does look nice otherwise, even with a roof over the ramp.

Have you considered only having half the roof of the enclosing run solid with hardware cloth on the rest? Actually, since hardware cloth is so expensive and you don't have a predator problem in the area (knock on wood it stays that way), you could probably use chicken wire on the non solid part, just to keep the arial predators out. Shade is good but so is sun

As for the size of the run, what the heck, make it 14x14 or 14x20 or 20x20 or 30x30 or oops got carried away

What ever it is, figure out your materials before deciding. Nothing like having it 2" too big in a dimension for the material. And if it is smaller, lots of cutting. Make your (relatively) short life easier! Dimensional lumber is 8', 10', 12', 14', 16'. Wire usually comes in 2', 3', 4' widths and you want to overlap it a couple of squares where it is on solid wood, more if 'in the field' between posts. As with many things, the longer roll is less than twice the price of 2 rolls half the length and ten 10' rolls are over 2.5x a 100' roll. If you are wrapping the bottom of the run in hardware cloth (of course you are!) a 100' roll will do a run 25' on each OUT side. You could frame the whole thing up including the 'people' door, wrap the wire around and washer screw or poultry staple it on, then cut it around the door. One stop shopping! As for skirting, I wonder if we can't get away with 2x4 welded wire? No dog, coon, coyote, etc will fit through the holes and vermin that can, like ermines, will dig longer tunnels anyway so they could easily get under even 2' of horizontally buried skirt.

There's a small window on the kit coop. We are hoping to add a sample size window to the home made part soon.

We are using materials we already have for the run. My mom got tons of welded fencing, in two heights for free from a neighbor and brought it out to us. We had to put a new steel roof on our (human) house last winter. We don't have tons of spare cash right now. So far this setup has run us close to $300, and that is about our limit for materials. We have lots of snow here, I definitely want some sort of roof over the run, there are no shade trees near the coop (till my apple gets bigger anyway) we have a good size piece of steel roofing left over, so I hope to figure a way to cut it into panels and make a run roof. The under roof area be sunny 1/2 the day, comes in at an angle. We have a shade shelter thing for my daughter right beside this and the sun comes glaring in all afternoon to sunset. We had wanted to use fence pickets like we made the extension from, but at $1.58 ea, that would get pretty pricey. Ripply fiberglass was also an option, but that is like $20 a chunk. We can always change it later if we want more space. We're just roofing it on an angle, not a peaked real roof. It would be easy to add some more run lengthwise someday. The max width is about 9 feet, unless we MAJORLY level the ground, the chicken house sits on a little ridge in our lawn that never stays wet long. Behind it is mushy in the spring...I don't want my girls to have a wet play yard. The previous owner brought in a dozer and built that part of the yard up, we have a spring in the way back so that area is really unusable.

As for predators, our next door neighbors have 20 some odd chickens in a bunch of dog run chain link panels, I believe unskirted, and on the other side he has welded fencing and not buried, 8 chickens. No one has had a problem so far. The way I see it (and this is horrible) there are less protected chickens 200 feet and 75 feet from ours, so if I were a fox I would pick the easier meal. Our larger run will be a day pen only. Everyone gets locked up at night.

 

[Peggy O]

You've done a great job with expanding...chicken math...get's ya every time!!

With that said, I'd sure rethink the size of your run...sounds like it will be a tad "tight" seeing how your coop(s) are within that framework....JMHO...

Ha ha...thanks. We may be minus one though, Silver Laced Wyandotte is looking slightly roo-ish to me. Too soon to tell but I have a feeling. If so he gets a new home, a friend will take him.

They will have the ground under the coop too. The kit has a small yard, and the living space is above. At chicken height (lol) it's 9 x 14 outside space (about) Just in smaller areas.
Here is a front view (Addition goes straight out behind same height as the existing room, run over all, more to the left though) We are cutting a door to make the two parts into one larger house area. The addition will be attached straight out the back.
Ironically it's going to look alot like our house! Our kitchen is the same shape off the back and our front house looks like the kit a little. We didn't even plan that one.

 

[cath0617]

So instead of tearing down my kids old playhouse/swing set we decided to transform it into a chicken coop! But I have a few questions before we go any further.....
1- can i leave the sandbox under the house or should I fill it with dirt?
2- should i put roosting poles outside the house as well as inside?
3- where does food and water go? inside or out?
4-i know i put pine chips in the house but do i put anything on the floor of the outside part?

any suggestions or tips with this coop would be greatly appreciated!! this is our first go with chickens
thank you!!

 

[MrSelf Destruct]

So instead of tearing down my kids old playhouse/swing set we decided to transform it into a chicken coop! But I have a few questions before we go any further.....
1- can i leave the sandbox under the house or should I fill it with dirt?
2- should i put roosting poles outside the house as well as inside?
3- where does food and water go? inside or out?
4-i know i put pine chips in the house but do i put anything on the floor of the outside part?

any suggestions or tips with this coop would be greatly appreciated!! this is our first go with chickens
thank you!!

Great re-purpose! I have a 'sand bok' in my run for the chicks to take a dirt bath. I would leave it personally. I would put some roosting poles in the run and the coop. I built a roosting ladder for my girls in the run and they love hanging out on it during the day. Food and water is personal preference I guess. I keep all mine outside of the coop. Easier for cleaning and the chicks go in the coop at night when they are going to sleep. I get up early and let the chicks out. My run is also predator proof so I don't have to worry about anything getting in there and eating the feed.

 

[Latestarter]

So instead of tearing down my kids old playhouse/swing set we decided to transform it into a chicken coop! But I have a few questions before we go any further.....
1- can i leave the sandbox under the house or should I fill it with dirt?
2- should i put roosting poles outside the house as well as inside?
3- where does food and water go? inside or out?
4-i know i put pine chips in the house but do i put anything on the floor of the outside part?

any suggestions or tips with this coop would be greatly appreciated!! this is our first go with chickens
thank you!!

Great job so far Cath!

and the thread!

The sand box under should be fine. The chickens like dust baths so they'll love that!

A lot of folks use sand in their coops/runs also. Depending on how many birds you intend to have, you may feed/water outside to allow more space inside for the birds. If you have really bad winter weather there when the birds might be "cooped up" inside for a few days, space will be important,

but of course they'll still need to eat and drink. For the outside run, you can put in virtually anything... leaves, grass clippings, table scraps, etc. If you throw in some scratch grains or BOSS (Black Oil Sunflower Seeds) every now and again, the chickens will move that stuff all over the place and you'll have ready made compost

You can do the same thing inside the coop and then just keep adding a little fresh pine chips every now and again. When it needs to be changed, just move it out into the run or to the compost heap. There's a thread on here about doing the deep litter method (DLM) with all kinds of pointers and info: https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/70/deep-litter-method

I can't tell if you have wire around the entire set up, but from the look of the woods, I'd say you're in prime real estate for some pretty heavy duty chicken predators... I recommend that you use hardware cloth with 1/2" squares and bury it at least a foot completely surrounding the run. Don't forget that some varmints climb too! Like raccoons! I know it's expensive, but so are the birds!
You can put some things inside the run to keep the birds entertained... a few perches, a stump maybe, hang old CD's from above, all kinds of little things to keep them entertained so they can keep YOU entertained

Congrats on your new birds, and good luck!

 

[kenmlang]

So instead of tearing down my kids old playhouse/swing set we decided to transform it into a chicken coop! But I have a few questions before we go any further.....
1- can i leave the sandbox under the house or should I fill it with dirt?
2- should i put roosting poles outside the house as well as inside?
3- where does food and water go? inside or out?
4-i know i put pine chips in the house but do i put anything on the floor of the outside part?

any suggestions or tips with this coop would be greatly appreciated!! this is our first go with chickens
thank you!!

Welcome to the world of chickens!!! The coop looks great!! As far as the first question, yes, fill it with medium to course sand and top it off with wood ash. The wood ash will help with parasite prevention. Just make sure there is no cedar ash in the mix as it is toxic to chickens. Second question: Put as many perches in the run as possible, maybe even a swing. I have perches in each of my runs, and my ladies use them for perch meeting in the mornings and evenings. In the warm weather, some of them roost outside. 3rd question: Your run is covered so it really does not matter, as long as it stays dry. Moldy feed will make them very sick. Number 1 rule: Make sure they have clean fresh water at all times. They will not drink if water is over 55 to 60 degrees, so during the summer months, go out and put some ice in their water supply to cool it down. Question 4: We put straw and wood shavings. Gives them something to scratch around in if they are in the coop/run all day. Gotta keep them busy, if not, they get stressed out and start picking on each other. We let ours free range, supervised, a few hours a day, and are fairly happy. We used to let them free range from 7:00am to dusk, until we lost one to a hawk, they just don't understand. LOL

Hope this helps!!

 

[bruceha2000]

We still need to add our nesting boxes (sometime before early September) but it's a functioning coop for our girls.

SWEET! Love the big windows. Really important for ventilation, especially those hotter summer days. And as people are probably tired of hearing from me about this by now, *I* think the chickens should have plenty of light during when they are awake and in the coop. Though your run looks pretty darned safe, they might have access to it 24x7.

No need to rush the nest boxes but have them ready when the girls are ~ 18 weeks since that is the early side for most breeds. Make sure they are lower than the roosts and if there is a top over them, it is slanted so the girls don't use it as a standing (and pooping) surface.

There's a small window on the kit coop. We are hoping to add a sample size window to the home made part soon.

We are using materials we already have for the run. My mom got tons of welded fencing, in two heights for free from a neighbor and brought it out to us. We had to put a new steel roof on our (human) house last winter. We don't have tons of spare cash right now.

Me too, and me too.

So far this setup has run us close to $300, and that is about our limit for materials. We have lots of snow here, I definitely want some sort of roof over the run, there are no shade trees near the coop (till my apple gets bigger anyway) we have a good size piece of steel roofing left over, so I hope to figure a way to cut it into panels and make a run roof. The under roof area be sunny 1/2 the day, comes in at an angle. We have a shade shelter thing for my daughter right beside this and the sun comes glaring in all afternoon to sunset. We had wanted to use fence pickets like we made the extension from, but at $1.58 ea, that would get pretty pricey. Ripply fiberglass was also an option, but that is like $20 a chunk. We can always change it later if we want more space. We're just roofing it on an angle, not a peaked real roof. It would be easy to add some more run lengthwise someday.

Everything is RIGHT when using 'leftovers'! So that will determine the size of your run, for now. You sound very 'together' with respect to needs and wants. It is often hard to stop at the first when it comes to the second.

BTW, chickens love apples. You can give them the extras or the bug 'tainted' ones. They love bugs too, an earwig in the apple is a BONUS! Hmmm, middle of nowhere, NY state, plenty of snow - WATERTOWN! Friend of mine's mom lives there. Snow up to the second floor sometimes. Too much for ME!

The max width is about 9 feet, unless we MAJORLY level the ground, the chicken house sits on a little ridge in our lawn that never stays wet long. Behind it is mushy in the spring...I don't want my girls to have a wet play yard. The previous owner brought in a dozer and built that part of the yard up, we have a spring in the way back so that area is really unusable.

If you want more 'day space' the part that is wet in the spring could be enclosed with the welded wire fencing for use the rest of the year.

As for predators, our next door neighbors have 20 some odd chickens in a bunch of dog run chain link panels, I believe unskirted, and on the other side he has welded fencing and not buried, 8 chickens. No one has had a problem so far. The way I see it (and this is horrible) there are less protected chickens 200 feet and 75 feet from ours, so if I were a fox I would pick the easier meal.

Sad but true!

So instead of tearing down my kids old playhouse/swing set we decided to transform it into a chicken coop! But I have a few questions before we go any further.....
1- can i leave the sandbox under the house or should I fill it with dirt?
2- should i put roosting poles outside the house as well as inside?
3- where does food and water go? inside or out?
4-i know i put pine chips in the house but do i put anything on the floor of the outside part?

any suggestions or tips with this coop would be greatly appreciated!! this is our first go with chickens

Nice repurposing. Would never have guessed it was a play set!
Is the ladder for people to get up for cleaning, etc or for the chickens to get out for free ranging?

1) Sandbox is fine. Some people use kids play sand in their coops!

2) Up to you. I made a temporary support frame for a HEAVY porcelain cast iron double bowl 'farmhouse' sink (American Standard, 1942

) so I could position it at the wall and hang it. Once the sink was mounted, I moved the frame out to the barn alley (their indoor run) in front of the only south facing window thinking the girls would like to sit on it in the winter. It has a 2x4 on the flat on one long side and a 2x6 on the other. The 'ends' are 2x4 on edge. Plenty of 'footing' options. I think I've seen a bird on there exactly twice! I guess I would put one roost out in the run and see if they use it. If they do, and they are fussing over who gets to use it, add more.

3) How often will the birds be in the coop when they are NOT sleeping at night and don't need either? Might you want to go somewhere overnight and need to leave them in the coop? Or will they be in the coop during the day? That sort of answers the question.

Space used in the coop for food and water is space the birds can't use. Anything on or near the ground will get full of shavings as they scratch around. As Ken says (below) it is really important to have fresh water (*) and the easier it is for YOU the more likely it will be kept up. You could make a PVC pipe and plastic flower pot 'plate' feeder using a couple of 45s and a cap that hangs in the corner under the coop that you can fill from the outside.

Your profile doesn't say where you live so water freezing in the winter may or may not be an issue. My water is in a 5 gallon drink cooler outside the coop that feeds 3/4" PVC pipe with saddle nipples. Originally there was (well still is) a pipe with 5 nipples in the coop which I then built into the bottom of a nest box in the coop with circulating warm water so they wouldn't freeze in the winter. Worked great 1st year, then 2 of the nipples just drained out the night before Thanksgiving last year. Not having time to take the box apart to see what was up, I made a 2 nipple pipe and put it under the cooler on the outside of the coop. They have an auto door that opens before they get up and closes after they go to roost so they always have access to water when they are awake.

4) If there is anything growing in that run, they will scratch it all out looking for food. Anything outside is fine since you don't wan't them having to stand in mud. If the ground doesn't absorb/drain well, you might want to put in a layer of sand so any rain that blows in from the side will leech out through the sand. You can toss the 'used' shavings from the coop out there. You can through new shavings out. etc, etc, etc

(*) though they happily drink from dirty puddles even when there is human quality water available, they ARE birds after all.

Number 1 rule: Make sure they have clean fresh water at all times. They will not drink if water is over 55 to 60 degrees, so during the summer months, go out and put some ice in their water supply to cool it down.

Say WHAT? If that were true, domestic chickens would have been extinct eons ago. I better tell my girls to stop drinking water in the summer.

The only reason I know of to put ice in the water is if it gets REALLY hot. They will happily drink 'ambient' temperature water. I wouldn't use one of the galvanized metal waterers set out in the sun, that WOULD get too hot. Any waterer kept in the shade is fine for most temperatures.

Bruce

 

[bellhorsepower]

We will be repurposing an old play house into a coop too, so am really interested in how yours works. I think chicken fever has set in, because everything I look at gets a mental evaluation for possible chicken use!

 

[sunnysideup2]

There are a lot of ideas below.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/coopdesigns.html