post your chicken coop pictures here!

[daniellecm]

How CUTE is that!!!!! I absolutely LUV your paint color!

thanks so much! First time mommy and builder. Trying to match the barn
loving this new chicken thing lol

 

[iwiw60]

NICE!!

 

[kenmlang]

thanks so much! First time mommy and builder. Trying to match the barn
loving this new chicken thing lol

That is a great looking coop-do-minium!! Someday I will have one of these!!

 

[jtbass2756]

I'll join in! Here is our coop - "Mother Cluckers". I designed everything...my dad, my husband, and I were the builders. The coop is 8x12' with a trap door in the floor to access the run area underneath the coop. From there we have a chicken tunnel that connects to our large run area. This measures 12x36'. The tunnel and large run are made from red cedar posts...we covered all sides and the top with hardware cloth. Our 7 nesting boxes are accessible from the outside of the coop so you don't go in every time you want to check for eggs. I can't wait for the weather to finally change here so I can get my plants in and window box filled...it looks awfully bare from the hard winter!

WOW !! THAT IS A GREAT COOP !! YOU ALL DID SUCH A GREAT JOB AND THE DESIGN IS AWESOME......YOUR PEEPS ARE LIVING IN LUXURY!

 

[Sylvester017]

Our city is right on the water, and I am smack downtown, so normally our winters are 'mild' Canadian winters... a few feet of snow and some cold days, but usually not too bad. We have a few tarps we will strap down on top for times of heavy rain or snow. We are getting some Barred Rock ladies, full sized as bantams are only sold free-run at the local feed store.

In the USA bantams other than the popular Silkies are rarely bought for backyards. Everyone in the States want the BIG meat or egg breeds yet many don't understand to provide them adequate space or range for their size.

Bantam breeds are reserved as broody hens, children's pets, or exhibition purposes. Since Silkies are such good broodies so many of the other cute bantam breeds are getting ignored. Many bantams are excellent flyers over the backyard fence which makes them unpopular and makes the Silkie more appealing as it can't fly out of the yard.

Personally I chose the under 5-lb breeds - very easy on the feed bill plus a gentle get-along-together free-range flock. Because our Silkies were our very first investment we went through some larger egg-layer bullies we had to re-home. Now I keep only gentle-tempered medium-weight breeds that are decent egg layers.

The under 4-lb egg layers seem a bit on the wilder flighty side (Jaerhons, Fayoumis, Friesians, Campine, or Braekel-types like Chaams or Gull breeds etc) so I stay between 4.5 to 5-lb breeds. The eggs may not be Jumbo but all my girls are fairly regular LG to XL layers - even the 2.5-lb Silkies lay 5-6 eggs/week when they aren't broody.

In USA Barred Rocks are tied with White Leghorns as best egg layers. They don't usually go broody which keeps egg numbers high. We had Barred Rocks and Dominiques. The Barred Rocks were bred originally from Dominiques with game bird infused to make the BRs larger. We've had BRs and Doms both and preferred the lighter weight Doms with smaller combs - they were easier on the feed bill. We also stayed with Leghorn breeds (White or Buff) which are lighter weight and easier on the feed bill but still lay large eggs. Some people like large brown eggs so the BRs and Doms are nice. A lot of people want the Rhode Island Reds for large brown production but they are big eaters - of course they are good meat for the table but many people can't think of using their aged birds that way.

For prolific and large sized eggs the Australorp and Light Sussex have impressed me with their nice temperament but they are such heavy breeds I can't mix them with our little Silkies. A friend of mine had a Buff Orp and she was a mean broody and my research on Wyandottes is that they are 50/50 temperaments from really nice to having to re-home them as bullies so I stay away from them on the off-chance I get one of the weird ones LOL. No offense intended to Orp or Wyan lovers!

Your climate area sounds really nice. Enjoy your flock and eggs!

 

[Sylvester017]

I'll join in! Here is our coop - "Mother Cluckers". I designed everything...my dad, my husband, and I were the builders. The coop is 8x12' with a trap door in the floor to access the run area underneath the coop. From there we have a chicken tunnel that connects to our large run area. This measures 12x36'. The tunnel and large run are made from red cedar posts...we covered all sides and the top with hardware cloth. Our 7 nesting boxes are accessible from the outside of the coop so you don't go in every time you want to check for eggs. I can't wait for the weather to finally change here so I can get my plants in and window box filled...it looks awfully bare from the hard winter!

I see all this gorgeous scenery and can't help thinking "Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!" That forested area has got to have some nasty critters that love chicken dinners. Just how secure, sturdy, and reinforced are the pen posts and wire and how deep is the wire buried? I live in the city and worry about Raccoons, Stray Dogs, and Opossums and occasionally Black Bear juveniles that come down from the mountain behind us - but you must have nastier wildlife than us.

Meshed poultry 1" wire won't hold against Raccoons or bigger wildlife. Most experienced chickeneers on this thread are so security conscious that seeing flimsy poultry wire sends them into convulsions as many of us have had close calls or have lost flocks to ordinary 1" poultry wire that bends easily and tears away easily by manipulative wildlife claws. A stray German Shepherd with a mutt companion broke down our yard gate and attacked our chicken coop. They mangled the 1" mesh poultry wire so badly with their teeth and claws it couldn't be saved. We were lucky a neighbor was home to hear the terrified chickens and chased off the mutts before they completely tore out the wire. We have since put up not one but two gates in a row in case anything wants to try breaking into the yard again.

Your building looks absolutely great and well built - I love the natural wood finish. This is not a "coop" it is a "house." Hens love secluded curtain nestboxes. Not very many people think much about their nestboxes and you did an A-1 in-house setup. Any plans to set apart a nursery for broody hens and hatchlings as I see a roo in your pics.

 

[NikkisChix]

 

[ADKChickenChick]

Thanks JTbass and Sylvester for the compliments! I know, Sylvester...the Adirondack Mountains are a rough place for a chicken as far as predators. With the coop...the 4x4 posts are buried 4 feet in the ground set in concrete. The wire is buried about 18" and large shot-rock stones were placed in the trench and then covered with dirt. The cedar run posts are set 2' in the ground...the wire is buried the same amount and we added the same stones to these trenches. We have never had any trouble with raccoons, skunks, etc. We frequently have fox tracks on our property...but have never had one around the coop. The run underneath the coop we used standard chicken wire. We stapled the wire and buried it before we knew better, but knock on wood have had no problems. The run is all 1/2" stainless steel welded hardware cloth. Much stouter than the other and I looked like I had wrestled with a tiger after finishing everything up...sharp stuff!

For a brooding area, we have an a-frame shed on our property that was here when we bought. There are two secure rooms inside with power, etc. We plan on using this area as our brooder area...we are currently using it as our separation pen if we have a chicken that needs to be separated. We open the windows so they can hear the other chickens...it seems to be working out well.

When my husband and I bought our property we cut a ton of trees in the back of our house to open the yard up. We hired a portable mill to cut and plane the wood for us...ALL the lumber used in the coop were trees behind our house 8 months earlier

 

[roostercantrell]

Thanks JTbass and Sylvester for the compliments! I know, Sylvester...the Adirondack Mountains are a rough place for a chicken as far as predators. With the coop...the 4x4 posts are buried 4 feet in the ground set in concrete. The wire is buried about 18" and large shot-rock stones were placed in the trench and then covered with dirt. The cedar run posts are set 2' in the ground...the wire is buried the same amount and we added the same stones to these trenches. We have never had any trouble with raccoons, skunks, etc. We frequently have fox tracks on our property...but have never had one around the coop. The run underneath the coop we used standard chicken wire. We stapled the wire and buried it before we knew better, but knock on wood have had no problems. The run is all 1/2" stainless steel welded hardware cloth. Much stouter than the other and I looked like I had wrestled with a tiger after finishing everything up...sharp stuff!

For a brooding area, we have an a-frame shed on our property that was here when we bought. There are two secure rooms inside with power, etc. We plan on using this area as our brooder area...we are currently using it as our separation pen if we have a chicken that needs to be separated. We open the windows so they can hear the other chickens...it seems to be working out well.

When my husband and I bought our property we cut a ton of trees in the back of our house to open the yard up. We hired a portable mill to cut and plane the wood for us...ALL the lumber used in the coop were trees behind our house 8 months earlier

your chicken mansion is super nice and way to go using trees you had cleared from your land to build it with instead of sending it to just any sawmill

 

[roostercantrell]

nice coop i like the name