post your chicken coop pictures here!

[FlyWheel]

I've been lurking around this site for months and finally decided to posts my pictures because now that we have reached end of August I am now starting to get concerned about winter.
.1st - I live in Mascouche, Quebec (subbarb of Montreal)
2nd - I live in a city, not rural or anything.. ok house and tiny backyard
3rd - Thought it would be fun to have chiken since I'm allergic to anything else with fur

Here it goes
Like I mentionned, my yard is not that big and I was looking to house 2 hens. I'm a single mom with a 4yo daughter.
So while looking around my yard I've notice a wasted space under my balcony steps.

From what I've learned so far, each hen do not need that much space inside the coop so I figured that 16sq. on the bottom would be enough since my steps are 4feet wide and so happens to be 4f deep and then again 4f high.

And so it began
Took most of my lumber from under the balcony which was a gift from the previous owner or the ones before and my brother provided my with a lot of pallets and last but not least one of my friends had a brand new 50' roll of chiken wire.

My first build ever !! So far so good Boy was I proud and did not know what I was getting myself into

Yup, I started swearing right about there.. For a beginner, trying to square something in a triangle and uneven soil... oh the joy !!
Well I guess I took it one step at a time.. and A LOT of dry fittings

I wanted to have access from every angle so every opening are actually doors





From this site and others, I learned about poop trays so I did incorporate one




This ramp is actually in the way since both my hens jump to the 2nd level which is only 2' above the ground.. Maybe one day it will have some use if I have chicks




Here I installed the nestbox and the trunk from my Xmas tree... Yay recycle !!



I made a door for the nestbox so that they could do their business in private and in the dark.

Meet Vanilla and Caramel


1st egg came the following morning of acquiring the hens yippee !


Again from reading posts here and learning about feeders and waterers.. My homemade feeder which only hold about 4days of grain.. I'm back on this site to find the best way for my needs to get a larger one

This is my waterer.. First of all, everywhere you look on the internet everybody stress about the fresh clean and accessible water and the fact that they need them every second of the day it seems.. Well I happen to have 2 water dispenser so I took the one that no longer works and hid it under my balcony and it is all rigged up to my outside faucet and put the toilet thingy which by the way fits just right in the basin to stop overflow.. Then it comes out under the trellis and I used old pipes I found to get it into the coop with a nipple attached.. The long pipe sticking upright is actually higher than the water dispenser so it wont overflow and i put an aquarium eater.. don't know if it'll work, we'll see this winter.

This is the view from behind the nest.

This is what it looks like now with both doors on each side open. I could not put the roost higher than the nest cuz of the restrictive height


Here is where I started to get a little carried away with this coop project.. Again from reading on the subject I noticed that I needed to let them out of the coop.. I tried makeshift pvc boxes which was a disaster, took some pallet and made some perimeter but needed something more..

Took 2 pallets and some leftover 2x4s and made them my version of a run. Even put wheels on it..
Well for my backyard it is quite huge.... then ding ding ding ... slide it under the balcony where all the lumber used to be




Now how to get them from the coop to the run ????


I am thinking now that it is more a labyrinth than anything else





I think that they want more space.. so I've created another perimeter between my house and my pool, but by then my neighbour had started renovations and need to tare down our fence, so I miss about 6' wide by 30' long of yard.. so now my girls roam around lumber, bicycles and what not.












All of this and they look happy.. they both have given me an egg a day since I had them.. I counted #136 to date


NOW the thing is.. I dont know what to do about this whole thing for the winter..
I went to somebody's house to disassemble a big coop, brought it home.. still in pieces du to lack of space until I get it back.. but then again do I really want to put a coop on the other side of my house where I never shuffle snow or do I want to keep em close by and just try my best to keep them hot enough for them to survive winter..
A lot of friends have suggested a fall BBQ




While I'm thinking about it I have built these (out of pinterest) I guess I'm getting quite ok with tools

Now that is a cool use of what otherwise would be wasted space. I wish I could do something like that. Unfortunately the underside of my patio is the only access to my What-Passes-For-A-Basement.


Oh my! Kiddy-P

rn!!

 

[gpeters3]

I think you will find that the roof over the nest boxes doesn't have enough pitch to keep them off it. Wait and see, they may choose not to poop on it

I make any covers they can reach at 45 degrees and all but the bantams avoid them due to footing issues. I had a golden bantam that could latch on to the top edge of the cover with her toes and would perch up there (she was on the bottom of the order). I also have a 4" pvc nipple water system with 15" clearance above and a pipe about 10" above it for hanging feeders that some of the birds can actually get on and sit. I don't know how they hold on to the slippery pvc, maybe they just balance but they get up there now and then. They have 2, 8' 2x4 roosts with multiple levels to roost and perch on and some still try to perch on the pipe....

As to "maybe they won't poop on it"............you don't know chickens if you believe that They poop on anything, even in their own drinking water and food. They have no respect for anything.

 

[bruceha2000]

As to "maybe they won't poop on it"............you don't know chickens if you believe that They poop on anything, even in their own drinking water and food. They have no respect for anything.

I know, BOY do I know. But JUST in case the chickens decide they have more interesting things to sit on, I figure it is worth not replacing it with a steeper roof right off. Innocent until proven guilty

 

[Milagro02]

thanks ! now I just need inspiration for winterizing the whole thing

 

[Sylvester017]

I make any covers they can reach at 45 degrees and all but the bantams avoid them due to footing issues. I had a golden bantam that could latch on to the top edge of the cover with her toes and would perch up there (she was on the bottom of the order). I also have a 4" pvc nipple water system with 15" clearance above and a pipe about 10" above it for hanging feeders that some of the birds can actually get on and sit. I don't know how they hold on to the slippery pvc, maybe they just balance but they get up there now and then. They have 2, 8' 2x4 roosts with multiple levels to roost and perch on and some still try to perch on the pipe....

As to "maybe they won't poop on it"............you don't know chickens if you believe that They poop on anything, even in their own drinking water and food. They have no respect for anything.

On top of that each chicken poops about every 15 to 20 minutes

 

[Sylvester017]

thanks ! now I just need inspiration for winterizing the whole thing

We got tired of winter downpours and leaks and having to use tarps and pop-up canopies over our first little coop.


When we finally got another coop 5 years later we invested in a patio roof over the coop (same location) to keep out sun or rain! We stay dry now walking out the sliding door a few steps to the egg collection box every day.

 

[Milagro02]

We got tired of winter downpours and leaks and having to use tarps and pop-up canopies over our first little coop.


When we finally got another coop 5 years later we invested in a patio roof over the coop (same location) to keep out sun or rain! We stay dry now walking out the sliding door a few steps to the egg collection box every day.

Not sure we are talking about the same winterizing.. I live in Quebec.. you know 400miles North of NY

I'm talking 3-4' of snow and -35 celsius.. at some point around there Farenheit and Celsius meet but lets say for argument sake that it's -15f.. I need to keep em out of the cold or eat them

 

[junebuggena]

Not sure we are talking about the same winterizing.. I live in Quebec.. you know 400miles North of NY

I'm talking 3-4' of snow and -35 celsius.. at some point around there Farenheit and Celsius meet but lets say for argument sake that it's -15f.. I need to keep em out of the cold or eat them

Chickens are very cold-hardy creatures. As long as the coop is dry and well ventilated, most breeds do just fine in very cold climates. A lot of people make the mistake of thinking they need to seal up a coop to trap and hold in heat. The problem is, by doing that, you also end up trapping ammonia and moisture.

 

[Milagro02]

Chickens are very cold-hardy creatures. As long as the coop is dry and well ventilated, most breeds do just fine in very cold climates. A lot of people make the mistake of thinking they need to seal up a coop to trap and hold in heat. The problem is, by doing that, you also end up trapping ammonia and moisture.

I know.. but i think it's instinct to think they'll be cold..
At least I need to put solid doors not leave those improvised ones with only chiken wire on them

 

[Sylvester017]

Not sure we are talking about the same winterizing.. I live in Quebec.. you know 400miles North of NY

I'm talking 3-4' of snow and -35 celsius.. at some point around there Farenheit and Celsius meet but lets say for argument sake that it's -15f.. I need to keep em out of the cold or eat them

Keeping icy snow off the roof of a chicken house can work both ways -- some say built-up snowdrifts insulate the chicken coop from winds and blowing sleet or it can plug up the ventilation or leak into the coop as it melts -- there are pros and cons in all chicken housing. I just found that having a patio roof over our coop keeps it much cooler in hot sun and no leaks on rainy downpours. If I lived in snow country I would still find a way to have a roof built over a coop building -- Makes it nice when one treks thru mud or slush to get to the coop every day. On the farm my folks built a slanted lean-to type roof over the chicken/duck coops/runs and that's where I incorporated the same idea with our newest coop when I got tired of battling leaks in the old little coop. When you eventually solve your insulation/winterizing still keep adequate ventilation in mind. That was a hard concept for me to grasp when planning coop ventilation for winter as well as summer temps. Our climate is the opposite of yours -- always hot and humid and we sometimes don't even get frost in the Winter. For our heatwave ventilation problem I ordered a heavy-duty wire kennel floor tray for more adequate insulation for our hens -- the solid floor tray will go back during the cooler Winter months:


Show us what/how you decide to winterize your chicken housing. We love pics to get ideas that have worked for other owners!