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!
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actually is beige
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 awayWhat 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.
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...
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.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!!
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!!
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!!
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
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.