post your chicken coop pictures here!

[1FunkyChicken]

LOL... I hear rent is free if you can keep it white! ; )

 

[vehve]

@bruceha2000 I have to say that they are my favorite breed out of what we have (Three Araucana-Marans mutts, a pure BCM and two Speckled Sussex). They are a bit more flighty and gamelike, more primal than the others. Really quick, and seem to be able to escape predators (had an episode with them escaping our yard earlier today and the neighbors dogs showing an interest with them, no harm done though). Also, they're beautiful to watch.

I'm expecting the egg size go up to about 50g or so. I don't know how easy they would be to find outside Finland, even here I think the population is estimated at about 3000 birds I think. Although, that is a few years old info, and backyard chickening has grown more popular, and that is one of the more popular breeds.

 

[Sylvester017]

Somewhere I saw the idea of using astroturf or some similar artificial lawn on the bottom, would be harder to scratch out.

Thanks for the added input vehve and agreed that AstroTurf and probably other products on the market would be a good solution for most hens. However we have an OCD Silkie that's been to the vet 4 times this past year - twice because she scratches in the wooden nestbox so long and hard that she splinters and tears off a toenail or two - 2 nails pulled out at the root and never grew back. So we can't have anything in the nestbox bottom to catch on her toes when she scratches. She'll do it till she bleeds. We had to line all the wooden nestboxes with plexiglass to keep the surface smooth on the bottoms - we had plastic but it got scratched up pretty badly and could still catch on the toenails so plexiglass was our final solution.

We fill with extra straw for cushion and by end of day most of the boxes are low to near empty of straw. We have a couple OCD hens that like to scratch out the straw. Thank goodness our square nestboxes have round-hole entrances to keep some of the straw inside at least until after the OCD hens have layed. If our nestboxes were level with our coop floor without a retaining strip of wood the eggs would be kicked/rolled out of the boxes onto the coop floor everywhere. Regarding eggs that don't roll - if they didn't roll easily then there wouldn't be some fancy nestboxes designed to let the eggs roll out of the nestboxes after the hens lay their eggs - battery cages are angled for rolling eggs too.

For most chickeneers standard suggestions work in the coops but some of us have special circumstances that standards don't apply sometimes and it's nice to share such odd circumstances should others encounter something out of the ordinary too.

 

[vehve]

Thanks for the added input vehve and agreed that AstroTurf and probably other products on the market would be a good solution for most hens. However we have an OCD Silkie that's been to the vet 4 times this past year - twice because she scratches in the wooden nestbox so long and hard that she splinters and tears off a toenail or two - 2 nails pulled out at the root and never grew back. So we can't have anything in the nestbox bottom to catch on her toes when she scratches. She'll do it till she bleeds. We had to line all the wooden nestboxes with plexiglass to keep the surface smooth on the bottoms - we had plastic but it got scratched up pretty badly and could still catch on the toenails so plexiglass was our final solution.

We fill with extra straw for cushion and by end of day most of the boxes are low to near empty of straw. We have a couple OCD hens that like to scratch out the straw. Thank goodness our square nestboxes have round-hole entrances to keep some of the straw inside at least until after the OCD hens have layed. If our nestboxes were level with our coop floor without a retaining strip of wood the eggs would be kicked/rolled out of the boxes onto the coop floor everywhere. Regarding eggs that don't roll - if they didn't roll easily then there wouldn't be some fancy nestboxes designed to let the eggs roll out of the nestboxes after the hens lay their eggs - battery cages are angled for rolling eggs too.

For most chickeneers standard suggestions work in the coops but some of us have special circumstances that standards don't apply sometimes and it's nice to share such odd circumstances should others encounter something out of the ordinary too.

How about some sort of heavy rubber mats? They would provide cushioning without anything to catch on. Something similar to cattle mats.

 

[LindaB220]

This is a place we have rented for 3 yrs now, this old hen house was buried in overgrown saplings and weeds, after years of hard work it is cleared and refenced, for our new flock of chickens

Yea!!! Finished and ready to go... Good job

 

[Sylvester017]

In regards to the 2x4 short end vs flat side a lot of different books I have read suggest to use the short side of a 2x4 for bantams. The reason they give is because they end up pooping more on the board than into the poop tray(if your using one). I started my roost on the short end since my bantams were only 7 weeks when they moved out to the coop. At 11 weeks they still aren't roosting but I moved it to the flat side since they are bigger now.

I've found our Silkies like the 2x2 perch that came with our pre-built feed store custom coop but only use it during the day and not for roosting. We also notice them liking to stand on the 2x2 coop door threshold during the day. We had one Leghorn that used to perch on our square-ish wheelbarrow handles. Many perch on the border bricks around the yard that are 4" wide. Chickens are quite adaptable and it's nice to offer variety so have a 2x2 plus a 2x4 flat-side-up if the coop has the room for two and let them choose where to perch. Gotta clean a coop no matter what so what's a bit more poop on a 2x4 flat-side-up to clean? Silkies are an odd breed and many owners say their Silkies like to pile up on the floor rather than use a roosting pole. Ours have chosen the secluded nestboxes to roost in. In fact all our hens use the boxes becasue the perch that came pre-built in our little coop is the same level as the nestbox ledge instead of being attached higher than the boxes which is the recommended position.

 

[Sylvester017]

How about some sort of heavy rubber mats? They would provide cushioning without anything to catch on. Something similar to cattle mats.

We thought about hard rubber but that OCD Silkie of ours managed to scratch through the surface of hard plastic! Since the plexiglass is working I don't want to chance a different material on the possibility of having her damage any more valuable toenails or to take her back to the vet again. We had to settle on a surface so strong and smooth that there was no way she could scratch it up over time to eventually snag her toenails in it. But thanks truly for the ideas.

Some people have nestboxes with slotted or meshed bottoms and if we had that type of nestbox my Silkie would have raw and bleeding toes constantly.

 

[tntchix]

Almost complete... Just need sand in run and complete the patio around the outside with some rockers!

Whoa nellie. These chickens are going to live better than some folks I know. Wowza.

 

[vehve]

We thought about hard rubber but that OCD Silkie of ours managed to scratch through the surface of hard plastic! Since the plexiglass is working I don't want to chance a different material on the possibility of having her damage any more valuable toenails or to take her back to the vet again. We had to settle on a surface so strong and smooth that there was no way she could scratch it up over time to eventually snag her toenails in it. But thanks truly for the ideas.

Some people have nestboxes with slotted or meshed bottoms and if we had that type of nestbox my Silkie would have raw and bleeding toes constantly.

Yeah, if she keeps scratching the mesh would do nasty damage. The cattle mats are designed to withstand cow hooves, so I thought it might be something to look into, but of course the old rule of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" is always a good one...

 

[Sylvester017]

Haha! While it will for sure add to his work load, I have a feeling he'll appreciate the smaller impact on the bank account if he builds things for me himself! The Chicken coop only cost about $300 out of pocket since we used mostly reclaimed redwood and free wood from friends. That hardware cloth! That was the biggest expense. We did borrow the power tools from a friend, so I think I have gift ideas covered for the next few christmas' and birthdays. I really want a picnic table next!

Im so glad you looked at my coop and brought these things to my attention! I do have caps for the tops of the PVC but yes.. they can still get wet below so I need to figure that out. Thankfully it's not going to rain for months yet, so I have some time to get that worked out. Should be relatively easy!

As for the roosts.. I should take a pic of the inside.. But when the birds are roosting and all tucked in, the drafts go above their heads I think. There are two roosts in there, so I will do some investigating and make sure that they arent in the draft. How important is having the roosts above the nesting boxes? The nesting boxes are blocked off for now so that they dont start sleeping there, but I dont want them to develop that habit because of the roosts.

Last night I peeked in on them around 10pm and they were all cuddled up in a pile on the floor of the coop.

We've been tarping our little feed-store-purchased 4x6 coop for 3 years now. It has a roof material sheeting but it's a flat roof and the rain water pools on the flat roof (who builds flat coop roofs anymore?) Even though its mostly a decent design the whole thing is cheaply built and 3 of the 4 walls is open wire. We keep most of the coop tarped 24/7 because it protects the cheap wood from sun or rain damage until sometime in the future when we can replace with a quality coop. We get a new tarp cover every 6 months since sun and rain really wears out tarp - but better than having the coop absorb the damages. At night we completely tarp the coop leaving open ventilation at the bottom on one side.

Our hens don't use the roosting bar. Our 3 hens sleep in the nestboxes because it's the only secluded area in the coop and the perch is not located higher than the nestbox ledge. Silkies often won't use a roost pole and will pile up on the floor. I'm glad my Silkies chose to use the nestboxes rather than the floor. For sleeping in nestboxes ours stay relatively clean of poop. If there is some poop we clean it out every morning and add more straw if needed. Once a month we clean out old straw, Poultry Protector spray (OMRI organic) all the nestbox crevices and corners, and then add clean straw. We also Poultry Protector spray the hens once a month (directions on label). This controls lice/mites in the nestboxes.

One chickeneer had Silkies that refused to sleep anywhere except piled on the floor so she set up a large covered cat litterbox with straw and they started piling up inside the box rather than the floor. Chickens love seclusion. Even daytime our free-range hens will snooze/hide under their low lean-to's we set up, or the big doghouse we recycled, or under big rosebushes, or under the canopy we set up in the backyard.