post your chicken coop pictures here!

[Tiegrsi]

Not everyone can afford to make or buy enough welded wire to make a sufficient run. Or a nice coop. I did the best I could. Now I'm sorry I posted in this thread.
Thanks to those who posted supportively. I appreciate the warning but the way it was stated made me feel foolish for being proud of my crappy coop.

 

[gpeters3]

I kept chickens in 2 in chicken wire for 4 years with no predation and we have hawks, racoons, coyotes and stray dogs. I took precautions in my new setup just for insurance and stopped ranging them due to predation. Im not recommending keeping them in chicken wire, just saying sometimes its just misfortune. I actually had more trouble with internal bullying in the first 4 years.

Interestingly, i put wire over the top of the first run to prevent my bantams from flying out. It never occured to me that predators could climb over and drag the chickens out until a friend lost all his that way and it never occured to me that anything would or could chew through chicken wire until i heard it mentioned here because, having been around farms and chickens from my youth, i never witnessed it.

I appreciated insight gained from this forum and incorporated it into my new setup but sometimes the warnings do get a little busy. I dont think that is unfriendly, maybe just a little too helpful sometimes. Worst case, you might lose a few chickens before the light comes on. Thats how i learned Maybe the advice should be to start with easily replaced birds or set up a faq with such warnings and point it out to new members, especially on this thread since it focuses on housing/containment methods. (Perhaps such a faq exists, i havent looked)

 

[gpeters3]

Not everyone can afford to make or buy enough welded wire to make a sufficient run. Or a nice coop. I did the best I could. Now I'm sorry I posted in this thread.
Thanks to those who posted supportively. I appreciate the warning but the way it was stated made me feel foolish for being proud of my crappy coop.

We all started somewhere and not all with fancy stuff. My first effort was with junk wire i had lying around and a fence in my garage. That sufficed for 4 years and i didnt lose any to predation. Sometimes we just take unsolicited advice with a smile and assume they meant well

 

[Gundawg]

Today's work: I finished the hen house rafters and put in the ridge beam that will hold up the run roofing and the end 4 rafters of the hen house.

 

[perchie.girl]

Not everyone can afford to make or buy enough welded wire to make a sufficient run. Or a nice coop. I did the best I could. Now I'm sorry I posted in this thread.
Thanks to those who posted supportively. I appreciate the warning but the way it was stated made me feel foolish for being proud of my crappy coop.

Hang in there You can do this and I think your coop is a wonderful start... Mine have always been built with scavenged items bought at yard sales off craigs list .... and I have lost birds to predation.... even with Super duper highly fortified fortresses.

and you should be proud of the work you have done.

When you can afford it or come across a windfall a good start would be welded wire fencing you can cover the whole thing without tearing down. That will stop raccoons and dogs of any kind even your own.

deb

 

[perchie.girl]

Today's work: I finished the hen house rafters and put in the ridge beam that will hold up the run roofing and the end 4 rafters of the hen house.

OMG you said you were "revising" but that required a complete rebuild of the roof structure.....

I wanna borrow your toys for about a year.
deb

 

[Gundawg]

OMG you said you were "revising" but that required a complete rebuild of the roof structure.....

I wanna borrow your toys for about a year.
deb

Yes I did, I don't have a plan for the structure I had a vision of what I wanted to build but the reality was the roof was not a good idea in the front the rain would have came in between the 2 roof lines and defeated the 4' overhang to store the feed under. In the back that design made it difficult to enclose it would have been unsightly to have just closed the area between the 2 roof lines with hardware cloth or something. Changing the roof design made it easy to just make a ridge beam to carry the overhang into the run area plus it saved a post for the ridge beam of the run. The ridge beam and posts were a free CL score. I said to start with I was fussy and not a builder that is why I built the whole thing with screws I can literally take any of it apart if I don't like the results. I am happy with the roof now so I will not be changing it. I have had a tool addiction all my life and have been buying tools for about 40 years I learned a long time ago having the right tools for the job make things much easier and the final product comes out better.

I have a business and I make things for a living I just don't build structures this has been a fun project for me so far and a great learning experience. I will keep updating as it all comes together.

I still have to go back through the structure and add perlins and some nail boards to hold the siding. I think I am going to work on the run structure next so I can roof the whole thing at one time the run roof is going to be clear poly-carbonate.

Thanks Mike

 

[Sylvester017]

X2 Happy Birthday! In New Zealand being part of the commonwealth you get a letter from the Queen!

A letter from the Queen!!! That is too cool!!! I love watching the Royals so much that we named our newest Breda chicken "H.R.H. Charlotte Elizabeth Diana, Princess of Cambridge" after the newest cute Royal baby but we'll just call the pullet "Char" for short

. I can still remember as a child watching the Queen Elizabeth II coronation on our little living room television! It's so amazing that she and Prince Phillip are around and well all these many years later!

 

[bruceha2000]

OMG you said you were "revising" but that required a complete rebuild of the roof structure.....

I wanna borrow your toys for about a year.
deb

Get in line

 

[bruceha2000]

I don't think I have EVER seen a "constructive criticism" post here that was not offered with the best of intentions. I have surely never seen one I read as a criticism of someone's work. If people don't like it, they don't post.

I thought my converted horse stall was almost turnkey since there was either 2x4 wire or chicken wire on all openings but the door. Repurposed a 2x4 wire covered door from elsewhere. DONE! Then I read hear about the inadequacy of chicken wire and weasels that will go through small holes so I covered all openings, the door and the ceiling (floor joists to the floor above) with 1/2" hardware cloth. Then we saw a stoat. Cute little white weasel with black eyes, nose and tail tip up by the house. That sucker could get under the floor between the horse mats the same way the mice did so I pulled the mats and covered the floor with 1/2" hardware cloth poultry stapled to the walls and put the mats back in.

So I'm good right? Yeah, except for my

stupid self put the broody we rescued from a coon (she had been missing for nearly 2 weeks, coon found her and her nest in the plants by the barn wall at 4 AM one morning) in the next stall over where I had an ill hen in the broody buster to make sure she got her antibiotic water. I didn't want her parking her broody butt in the nest boxes in the secure coop. That stall also had 2x4 wire over the "windows" and I had put in a roost pole intending to use it as an integration pen for some pullets that didn't materialize. But I had forgotten it had openings at the top. 2 days later I found her decapitated body in the locked coop. That same evening at 7:15 the coon was in the barn, climbing the post the "secure coop" door (open) closes against, going I think for the hen in the buster since I had moved her earlier so she wouldn't be in danger at night. It is still REALLY light at 7:15 PM but I was going out to lock the girls in the coop (they were out free ranging) before dark when I figured the coon would come out. That evening it just walked through the open barn door but the prior night it had likely come through a tunnel the @#$% woodchucks keep making into the barn alley.

BTW, I have never before seen a raccoon in the 4.5 years we have lived here, 4 of which included chickens. I have lost 2 hens to foxes in the evening in late April. And what that means is I have never *SEEN* a coon. Doesn't mean they weren't around and I probably got lucky that they didn't get into the barn after I closed the hens in but before their auto door on the coop closed when it got dark which typically would have been well after the hens went to roost. What a massacre that would have been.