post your chicken coop pictures here!

[SHemphill]

Very nice and

I see you have some woods nearby... If you are prone to raccoons, foxes or opossums I would suggest about 3' going up of hardware cloth running along the bottom... The chicken mesh is just braided together and they will pry it apart... They can also reach through the wire and grab a bird by the head... After that.... Dead birds....
Hope it helps and good luck

As far as foxes havn't seen any in this area the coons and opossum and coons yes that's whi I did a concrete foundation and 1/2" mesh the bottom 2' then the 1" chicken wire is overlapping the first 4'. Cattle panel behind all to hold the arch. 6' x 12' concrete pad.

 

[WthrLady]

Coop and run are both 8x12 ft. Run is 6 feet high. Poles aren't trimmed yet.. they and black boards are now teal.

 

[Sylvester017]

Still need to make a runner for them and want to build identical house next to this one. I'm new at the byc life so input is appreciated. I know big house for just a few birds. I have some chicks that I don't think are big enough yet for the older birds.



In the fall I will be adding heat lamps and artificial light then when winter comes gonna add thick tarp and possibly vent fans.

Great start and as someone mentioned the chicken poultry wire is useless because it is only twisted around itself and comes apart easily. I nearly lost my flock our first month when dogs mangled the poultry wire and I would've lost the hens if not for a good neighbor who chased off the mutts. Poultry wire is good for keeping chickens in but not good for keeping predator paws out. Raccons love to rip off hen's legs and heads through the coop wire if they can't figure how to get inside the coop. The heavy cattle fencing wire is good for large predators but 1/2 inch (expensive beyond belief) is needed for protection from Raccoons, Oppossums, Skunks, Snakes, Rats, Dog/Cat/Coyote/Lynx Paws, Weasels, etc. Raccoons will climb the chicken poultry wire to get at a hen in a top nestbox so you'll need hardwire around the nestbox areas and the roosting perch areas as well as 3 or 4 feet all around the bottom. Don't need to remove the hex wire - just hardwire right over the existing poultry wire. You've got an excellent start and we all want to see the birds "secure." Nothing more disheartening then coming out in the morning to find all your birds injured, dead, or totally gone because of predators. I wish the idiots that make poultry hex wire were all "shot" or put inside a poultry wire coop with a mountain lion outside trying to get in - then maybe they'll get the idea that the poultry hex is totally useless! If we all stop buying it then they'll get hit in the profits margin. Glad to see you using the sturdy cattle fence wire but what's supporting it on the middle sides of the run? Do the nestboxes have a collection door at the backside of the nestboxes or do you enter the coop to access the eggs inside? Outside collection doors are a great help. We loved the one on our old coop. Here's hoping you totally love the therapeutic joy of having chickens and eggs!

 

[gilcamp4]

She's found herself a quiet corner to call her own. It's a good, defensible spot that's out of the way. What's not to like (if you're a broody hen)?

This is your broody hen's way of keeping the other girls from laying their eggs in her special nest. She's not dumb. She knows she can only handle a certain amount of hatching and that the eggs won't all hatch at the same time if other hens lay their eggs in her nest. If you know she's setting on fertile eggs, chicken wire her off from the other hens to keep them from laying in her spot; and remove her to make sure she eats/drinks and gets a little exercise a couple times a day and when she rushes back toward her nest, open the fencing so she can get back to her nest and close off the fencing again. She won't want to be more than a few minutes away from the nest before rushing back to it. Sometimes a good roo will set the eggs while his broody hens go get water and food but it looks like this broody is on her own so she won't take a long time to eat/drink before she returns to set her eggs. You're lucky if your hen has fertile eggs she's setting. I have a broody that's setting an imaginary nest - we have no roo so we have to remove the eggs before she collects them to set. Meanwhile we have to wait the 3+ weeks for her to get the broody out of her system before she returns normal to the flock again. Another went broody for a week and then decided it was no fun setting an empty nest and she returned to the flock.

what is that you use on the floor

 

[SHemphill]

As for collection doors no I didn't install them as planned. Here is a few better views of what I got.

 

[Sylvester017]

Hi y'all - here's the parts and pieces of our new Chicken Condos 4x4 Mobile Barn Coop w/ attached 4x4 Run Combo pkg from Cove Products. Everything went smoothly from Cove's Customer Service (Amber) and she got the custom ordered features spot on. However the ball dropped with some Quality Control manufacture issues and a lot of poor cushioning/packaging issues where the crate got shipped lying on its side rather than upright and a lot of damages/missing parts occured from the SAIA shipping company because of not enough protective cushioning between parts and a broken crate from too much loading and unloading on the 3 delayed delivery appts. The windows wall and one of the 4' kennel run wire walls was damaged. We'll need some replacements because some hinges also didn't align with the connecting walls.

The tall barn walls are 61/2 feet tall at the peak. Our old coop is in the background (with the blue tarp on top) and it's obvious how much taller the Barn Coop is next to our short little OSB coop which has found a new home with friends. The Barn is really a lovely coop except where the company dropped the ball using particle board interior walls which we have to seal/paint and unfortunately a window was ripped away from the window wall panel during delivery. Cove constructed the ladder ramps out of the shed insulated wall material rather than actual wood so the ladders came chipped, broken, unusable - this is the first coop company I encountered that used soft shed wall material as ramps rather than hardwood! Honestly though, other than the particle board cardboard interior walls and the shed wall ladders, all the rest of the coop has been solidly built. There are issues w/ Quality Control and shipping errors but the product itself is probably 99% of what we were searching for in a hen home. I've been following their progress and they have made great improvements over their prototype but still can improve the particle board interior and shed material ladders - I would say that would be their next items to improve on. Because of the exterior access nestboxes we planned a patio roof from rain protection - to keep both the nestboxes and ourselves dry when we collect eggs in the rain - lol! The roof should help to keep the coop cooler in our hot Southern Calif sun! Because of the gaps in the connecting corners of the Barn Coop I wouldn't trust the particle board interior walls to stay undamaged in a heavy rain, hence our decision to put a roof over the coop. Actually any coop we planned to order was going to be roofed over just because of our very hot summers. We just experienced 3 weeks of 90+ degree weather. This is our first cooler day (83o) in weeks!

This coop is so much larger than we thought it would be and glad we didn't go nuts to order the 4x6 Barn Coop which would've been a 5x6 footprint with the extended nestbox. The 4x4 Barn Coop ends up 5x4 with the nestbox extension! These 4x4 wall pieces are heavy enough yet assembling would've been a breeze if the connecting pin hinges were welded on straight and if we didn't have to wait for replacement parts which is why I can only post partial assembly photos. Besides the standard solid slide-out floor tray we ordered an additional wire-mesh floor tray for better ventilation during the hot humid summer weather. The double vents at the top of the barn walls are a great added ventilation and covered with fine mesh wire from the inside - keeps out bugs and flies. There is no option for opening the solid windows but Cove has added the vents and wire mesh floor for ventilation and the chicken pop door can also be left open inside the kennel run. We love that the hens can exit either through the coop floor ramp or the sliding pop-door to go underneath the pen. We ordered an additional 4-ft wire kennel run to make the total run area underneath 4x8 - more than enough for our 5 hens to toodle before letting them out for free-range. The attached 4x4 run also comes with a corruated metal roof while the Barn Coop roof is smooth metal. I feel confident our city Raccoons/'Possums will have a difficult time figuring ways to get into THIS coop. It is SOLID. We haven't had a rat/vermin issue in 2 yrs since we stopped putting feed inside the run. Since switching to portable nipple valve BriteTap waterers we have cut down the wild birdlife in the yard. After we train the hens on the Cove Products chicken treadle feeders hopefully that will eliminate 99% of the poopy wild birds in the yard that eat our organic feed!

 

[Sylvester017]

As for collection doors no I didn't install them as planned. Here is a few better views of what I got.

Super security-conscious! Couldn't tell if there was hardwire on the sides of the nestbox wire walls? I like he headroom you gave the coops!

 

[SHemphill]

Super security-conscious!  Couldn't tell if there was hardwire on the sides of the nestbox wire walls?  I like he headroom you gave the coops!

Thanks. I wanted to go for Fort Knox because all the coons and the cayotes haven't come in close enough for me to put a bead on but can hear them in the distance. But for the budget I think I did fair.

 

[TJordan]

what is that you use on the floor

It's made from weather treated plywood and the nesting material is pine shavings....

Thought about pine straw but I'm not sure... Now I do need to clean the coop so should I make a nest, carefully move the eggs, clean the coop and then replace the eggs back in the same area? Or should I just clean out around the eggs?

 

[Sylvester017]

Thanks. I wanted to go for Fort Knox because all the coons and the cayotes haven't come in close enough for me to put a bead on but can hear them in the distance. But for the budget I think I did fair.

Security IMO is foremost over looks but yours seems to have both security and style.