post your chicken coop pictures here!

[gilcamp4]

we are making a new coop and can not free range, we have one coop out of an rv, which we will still use, I would like to know if anyone has a coop with run inside the chicken yard, our coop is 27' long and the yard is 30 by 30, I would like to put a covered run so they have a place to go in the winter like last winter they got locked in coop when it snowed, I would like a run little longer then coop and about 14' wide with wood up 3/4 then screen, put it on the side that will not be hit by wind. any ideas.

 

[Sylvester017]

I loved reading your entire post @Sylvester017 ..words of truth and wisdom! As for the end of your post (as quoted above) I agree with you wholeheartedly that all of us should support the local farmer's markets .. I do whenever they are here in my area, which sadly is only from around June1st til Labor Day. The produce that gets shipped in (from God knows where!) isn't worth my time or my money...it starts going bad the minute I get it home. This is the time of year when sinking my teeth into a real ear of corn and real fruits and other vegetables is the highlight of my year. Here where I live we don't have real dirt...seriously! We have what is termed "kitty litter" .... there's hardly any dirt in it. Add to that the fact that we suffer from tremendous temperature swings on a daily basis...it can get down to 28 at night and zoom on up to 70 the next day. Gardens, real gardens, are a thing of the past for myself. So here I sit, retired (semi) and enjoying every single minute I can spend with my four little Black Australorp young ladies, who in about 2 months will be giving me wonderful brown eggs. My friends all think I've lost a few marbles that at my age I'm undertaking building my own coop and run and that I'm spending way too much money on it, but I just smile at them and say "yes, that may be so...but they'll be the tastiest $1,000 eggs I've ever eaten!"

Thanks again for a wonderful post...really enjoyed reading it!

Thank you for the kind words.

I get a couple gardening magazines from heritage farms from Oregon and Maine (once you get a magazine every other publication in the world gets your address). The varieties in these cold climate areas supposedly survive cold or snowy weather. You might find some produce that can survive the climate in your area. During the one or two weeks we might get frost I tarp my raised garden bed to protect my winter crops until the freezing nights go away. We had rock hard soil when we moved in 25 years ago. Today our raised garden bed is experiencing it's 3rd year of rich composted soil. The rest of the yard is still tough but the raised beds and container veggies all have good worked over soil. Every year I sterilize the garden beds and container soil (clear plastic bakes the soil). Then I add a bag of steer manure (our chickens don't make enough manure for a whole garden bed), a bag of organic Espoma veggie fertilizer, a bag of Vermiculite, a bag of Planting Mix (not chemically treated Miracle-Gro soil but some other brand of organic planting mix), and a gallon baggie full of finely crushed oven-baked chicken egg shells I saved for the year from our girls. The best darn one-pound-plus tomatoes grow in that raised bed!

Wow! you got me beat on the cost of eggs. We figured ours run us about $36/dozen! I like that you got the same breed for your flock. It really is the best way to go rather than trying to figure out which breeds mix well with what others.

 

[Sylvester017]

we are making a new coop and can not free range, we have one coop out of an rv, which we will still use, I would like to know if anyone has a coop with run inside the chicken yard, our coop is 27' long and the yard is 30 by 30, I would like to put a covered run so they have a place to go in the winter like last winter they got locked in coop when it snowed, I would like a run little longer then coop and about 14' wide with wood up 3/4 then screen, put it on the side that will not be hit by wind. any ideas.

Whoa! That's an ambitious build!

I've seen videos on youtube where people shovel paths from the coop through the snow so the chickens have ground paths instead of slushy snow to forage.

Sounds like a good thing for the chickens to have a covered run and wishing you the best!

 

[sammirae09]

Back in the 1940's we never locked our farmhouse door and never worried about illegal entries. Now in the 21st Century we've got key locks on our Amish chicken coops LOL!!!

exactly. it's crazy. i'm from the country where we didn't have to worry about that stuff and now it's ridiculous. i had to get a home alarm system and everything. i'm also getting a motion detector for my coop

 

[iwiw60]

Quote: Therein lies the problem...I live on the east side of the state. Oregon's west side? Only wish I did live "over the hill" on the west side...they've got dirt! Everything on the east side of the Cascade Mountain Range is kitty litter....literally (no pun intended!) Over here on my side there's not much you can do unless you high-tunnel and bring in huge quantities of the 'gold' ... dirt. Here it's either logging, or free-ranging cattle on BLM land.

 

[jtbass2756]

yes, my BO's wont use the roost bar even though its only 40cm off the floor, im fitting a cross bar 15cm up to try encourage them, but failing that I will have to tryfit a ramp into an already cramped hut.

My BCM's took the longest time to take to the roost. In the brooder they were always trying to fly up on the tallest thing in there...move them to the kennel in the yard and put a two roost (two different heights....then they wanted to just cuddle together on the ground.! BUT,,,,they finally started taking to the roost and now, they do the fighting thing to see who gets what spot!!!

 

[jtbass2756]

Despite all the afternoon rains, my friends got the flooring in a a couple of pieces of the siding done. Then it poured again! Thunder, etc.

 

[QueenBubbles]

Coop done, placed in yard:

Day 2: it might do...;-)

 

[KallippidesKoop]

Here are a couple pictures of my coop and run. I bought the coop off Craig's List. Big mistake. Learned my lesson the hard way. Took the leaky roof off, added about 12-18 inches, and made it a slanted roof instead of a pitched one. The short run came with the little coop. Me yard man helped me build the taller run. I would like to build a bigger coop in the near future. I have 7 hens and 2 roosters who are going to be rehomed very soon. I can't have roosters in my subdivision. All my chickens are around three months old. This is my first experience raising chickens. My neighbors had their doubts about the chicken thing, but now they come over to drink a glass of wine and watch chicken TV with me. My Chihuahua thinks the chickens are her new playmates. So, everyone is happy!

 

[Bethel3330]

Back in the 1940's we never locked our farmhouse door and never worried about illegal entries.  Now in the 21st Century we've got key locks on our Amish chicken coops LOL!!!

No kidding! Ours is padlocked because the neighbor doesn't watch her troublemaking kid.