Hello andand the thread. There's also a CO thread with great folks on, many from the CS area. You might swing by there and say HI as well
Couple of things, and I'm (trying to) not be overly critical, but trying to help you. There are number of serious concerns with your set up:
1, Chicken wire is useless... (plastic "chicken wire" is even worse!) read back on this thread... you'll hear the same thing over and over again.
a. It's only good for keeping chickens in or out & what you have there wouldn't even succeed at that. The birds (most) could easily jump (no need to fly) over it... in either direction. And they WILL to get their beaks into that nice green lawn!
b. If there are stray dogs, cats, or foxes, raccoons, possums, aerial predators in your general area, they will enjoy having lunch/dinner at your place... chicken will be the main course. You REALLY need to make a serious enclosure using 1/2 inch hardware cloth for the lower 2-3 feet, with an additional 12-18 inches (of hardware cloth or some heavy gauge wire fencing) aproned out or buried to prevent diggers from getting in. There are plenty of pictures here, just go back a few posts.
2. Not sure how many birds you have, but when you say little, you're SO right on targetThat coop would be marginally OK for 1 full sized bird at most, and then only if it was just going to be inside to sleep/lay an egg. Each mature LF (large fowl) chicken needs 2-4 square feet of floor space inside the coop. The smaller the coop, the more space required. Imagine if you had to sleep in your closet with additional people... In cramped conditions, they will pick at each other and their health will decline fairly fast. In addition, when winter comes and there's bad weather when the birds will need to stay inside the coop for a day (or more!) there's no room in there for them, food, and water!
a. The height inside is completely insufficient as there's no place for the bird(s) to roost... a full grown bird with it's head up would already be brushing against the ceiling. I guess it/they will have to sleep on the floor or in the nest box(es)?
b. The ramp to the pop door is way too narrow and way too steep. It should be about as wide as the board right under the pop door, and about 1/2 again as long... no more than about a 45 degree angle. Adult birds would have no problem jumping down and back up if you built a small shelf (porch) right outside the pop door, and wouldn't even need the ramp.
c. I don't see any real ventilation and that's going to cause serious problems in direct sun as the inside will be like an oven. If there is ventilation I don't see, it's going to be very drafty directly on the birds in the winter, and that could kill them. There's no room inside for them to escape the drafts... A chicken can live in temps down to -20 or lower as long as they have no drafts directly on them.
Your bird(s) will be very appreciative of you for fixing these items
So my coop is just under 4' square. I should be fine on the square footage for 4 birds. The lowest part of the roof inside the coop is 20" and 30" at the peak. For ventilation I screened off the underside of the upper eave. On the low part of the roof, the roofing material provided small gaps at each peak of the wave. I do plan on running a bead of silicone between each siding board and installing rigid foam insulation on the underside of the floor. The chicks are locked up at night and during the day someone is always home. I do have a stick set up outside for them to roost on. What is an ideal height for the roosting stick inside? They did manage to get down the ramp today. Some jumped straight off. Some waddled halfway down. Either way, I am going to lengthen it to decrease the angle. It's currently right at 45 degrees. Thanks again for voicing your opinion!
Joe
That was cool... Idea .... Get an old window screen and put in the bottom of the coop and then cover it ... Just lift, sift, dump, put back... Now WHERE CAN I FIND THAT AND WHATS THE COST?!
