post your chicken coop pictures here!

[momabuck]

Here is the beautiful coop dh built for our 9 girls.

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[iwiw60]

Nice job! I especially love your chicken run...woot!!

 

[coaldigger]

Up at 5, chillin with the kids

 

[bruceha2000]

Looks like your hen's nestbox entrances are round-holed entrances - hens love those round hole entrances, or curtains.

I don't know if they REALLY care what shape the hole is or not

I put a single egg shaped hole in the center of the wall of the covered community box, my puny attempt at artistic 'embellishment'. Truth be told, I'm a lot better at form and function than art

It was their only choice at first and they all used it. Then I made a 3 nest open box (the one with the nipple water pipe built into the bottom). Both get used though the open box is preferred by most of the girls. They have their favorite nest in the open box and it gets pretty pissy down there when 2 birds want the same box. Some of the girls will let the Cubalayas squeeze in (they are about 2/3 the size of the others) and sometimes the 2 Faverolles will be in the same box (mostly if they are going broody (AGAIN!) and one was shoved out of another box). Generally speaking they do NOT like it when another bird hops on the perch to get to an open nest. I don't know if curtains would help or hurt since the ones coming up would have to stick their faces in a box to see if it is occupied. That would be a lot more intrusive than just being on the perch. I might cut a hole (could be round

) in front of the generally unused end of the community box and put in a divider to see if that might alleviate some of the bottleneck at the 3 open boxes. Could even put a curtain on it just for the sake of experimentation. You would THINK that with 10 birds and space for 7 to nest at the same time PLUS there is an old horse grain feeder on the floor of the room where the feed and shavings are kept that has shavings in it (*) they could manage to have peace but NOOOOOO " *I* have to be in *MY* favorite nest!!!!!"

(*) the now gone EE laid an egg there once so I made it a nest box. She never used it again, went back to the boxes in the coop. I did find an egg in there yesterday and a Faverolles scratching around. The egg wasn't warm so she hadn't just laid it and she didn't lay yesterday. Since I look in the box pretty much every day JUST in case, the egg had to have been laid the day before.

built this one for my fiancé . She want a barn painted john deere green and yellow.

And so it was! Does she also drive the John Deere tractor or just wanted color coordination?

What did you use for the finish of the wood? I am really leaning towards keeping the wood look on mine once it is done?

It looks like Sikkens. I have that on the cedar clapboards on my house. Protects the wood but you can see the grain through it. We'll see what the OP says

Here is our coop. I'm soo proud of my DH ....I think he did a great job. It's still a work in progress but the girls are happy!


He DID do a great job but I am going to beat Sylvester to this one

You NEED 1/2" hardware cloth around the bottom 3 feet of the run. Just about any canine (domestic or wild) will be through that chicken wire in a VERY short time. Raccoons as well. Then all your birds will be trapped and dead.



Do the chickens like the slide on the play set? Oh, wait, that is outside the run

Great framing in the picture, even if accidental.




You MIGHT find that you need to change the angled partitions on the nest boxes. I made my open box JUST like that and the birds annoyed each other no end until I made 'reverse angle' pieces so the partitions are now rectangles. Also consider the access perch. I think it is too close to the nest boxes for them to use it to get in the boxes. Better if it is maybe 6" away.
I don't see outside access to the nest boxes, are you going to send the kids in through the chicken door for collection or is there something I'm missing?

 

[LindaB220]

built this one for my fiancé . She want a barn painted john deere green and yellow.

Looks great .

If the tin makes it too hot, you can paint it darker.

 

[vehve]

Looks great .

If the tin makes it too hot, you can paint it darker.

Darker? That would make it even hotter. Insulation would be the way to go to make a tin roof cooler, or painting it with a light, heat reflective paint.

 

[Latestarter]

Uh huh! what ^^he said

 

[kaseythomas86]

.

My chickens finally moved in today!!! I am so happy with my coop and proud I my husband because this was the first thing he has ever built!! The chicken are happy with it too!!

 

[kaseythomas86]

Love my big doors!

 

[kaseythomas86]

Inside. My husband is going to build some roost before he goes into work tonight.