post your chicken coop pictures here!

[Sylvester017]

Oh yea, i gotta get a step stool, but im putting 2 doors on each side so i can get in and reach. Im going to do the plastic bins for their nesting boxes as well so i can clean them out better and plus a vinyl floor I guess if i cant do it i got 2 kids who can get up in it and clean! lol

Good luck tearing your kids away from their sporting and school events! haha! Seems like I spent 20 years behind the wheel of my car carting kids around from one event to another. Coming home for me was more like a vacation than a real vacation would've been!

 

[bzombie]

Good luck tearing your kids away from their sporting and school events!  haha!  Seems like I spent 20 years behind the wheel of my car carting kids around from one event to another.  Coming home for me was more like a vacation than a real vacation would've been!

Haha right! my sister is like that... my oldest is 12 and wants nothing to do with sports lol so i got lucky, but my 4 year old loves riding on her little dirt bike so i think she might be my athletic one. Either way, Its lots of wishing when they cant even keep their bedrooms cleaned, let alone a coop! lol I forsure couldnt afford to buy a coop, new or used! amazing how much they go for. So i had to come up with something! ,, going to go to the amish friday and get some steel siding from their scrap pile. funny how this little stuff gets me all excited!

 

[Flock In Texas]

I wish I had thought of converting an old wooden swing set into a coop/run. The A frames would have been perfect. The coop up high and the wider run below. I got rid of it years ago, but it could have been greatness.

Here are some pictures of my tractor.
Front. Run beneath. 21 feet of roosts above. Lower level has nesting buckets on one end and feed and water on the other with "poop trays" protecting them from above below the roosts. Trap door leads to 32s.f. grazing area below. I let the girls out every day to stretch their legs a little and move the tractor to keep them in fresh grass. I mounted a light fixture on the inside above the front door with a switch and electrical outlet. I put a clock radio in the rafters to keep the girls company and confuse predators.

This is the view with the front door open. I hung a swing from the top roost. The waterer is temporary, as I'm having leaking issues with the 5 gallon jug.

This is the view of the roosts from an end door above the food and water. Sorry it's blurry.

Here is where it typically sits.

 

[bzombie]

...

I wish I had thought of converting an old wooden swing set into a coop/run. The A frames would have been perfect. The coop up high and the wider run below. I got rid of it years ago, but it could have been greatness. Here are some pictures of my tractor. Front. Run beneath. 21 feet of roosts above. Lower level has nesting buckets on one end and feed and water on the other with "poop trays" protecting them from above below the roosts. Trap door leads to 32s.f. grazing area below. I let the girls out every day to stretch their legs a little and move the tractor to keep them in fresh grass. I mounted a light fixture on the inside above the front door with a switch and electrical outlet. I put a clock radio in the rafters to keep the girls company and confuse predators. Thats a really cool idea with the radio!

 

[Flock In Texas]

The radio is for our entertainment as well. My wife and I sneak outside at night and watch the chickens with their light on inside. June bugs and moths provide entertainment. The radio gives us music and we take snacks and drinks with us. During the day, we hang out and let the birds roam the yard with the dogs.

 

[the poppster]

...

I wish I had thought of converting an old wooden swing set into a coop/run. The A frames would have been perfect. The coop up high and the wider run below. I got rid of it years ago, but it could have been greatness. Here are some pictures of my tractor. Front. Run beneath. 21 feet of roosts above. Lower level has nesting buckets on one end and feed and water on the other with "poop trays" protecting them from above below the roosts. Trap door leads to 32s.f. grazing area below. I let the girls out every day to stretch their legs a little and move the tractor to keep them in fresh grass. I mounted a light fixture on the inside above the front door with a switch and electrical outlet. I put a clock radio in the rafters to keep the girls company and confuse predators. Thats a really cool idea with the radio!

I've got a radio tuned in to NPR for my flock. They seem to like the classical music and the talk and news. Heck! I'm sure they know more about current events then I do! The radio calms them...they aren't started by every little noise. I also have one of those swirly low wattage red lights on at all times in the coop. They also seem to like that they can see even if it is quite dim. If something managed to get into the coop, at least the birds won't be "Sitting Ducks" I'm sure the critter might have second thoughts about a nice fresh chicken dinner, when their supposed pray sets up a fuss to wake the dead, instead of sitting silently blind in the darkness, trying to "Hide" as the intruder plucks one after another from her perch. So far over the last four years, I haven't lost a single bird inside the coop with the red light on...especially when I had to work 12 hr nights and days, and had to leave the pop door open thru the night...and open it in the darkness before dawn as I headed of to work. I've lost a couple hens to weasels...out in the enclosed run....and eight chicks in a chicken tractor, it didn't get the broody hen...so far so good. I am replacing or adding hardware cloth to all walls of my run...I used welded wire and two ft of chicken wire around the base and buried into the ground, but weasels can slip thru those one inch holes like nothing. I had to trap them to eliminate them...I caught three. Mom weasel and Big daddy along with another young male. That took care of my weasel problems for the remainder of the summer.

 

[GuapoDad]

Sweet! Mucho nice.

 

[bzombie]

ok so i need help... i am wondering how much ventalation is needed... we will have the hole on the floor- im wanting 2 doors on each side with like a screen door as well so i can open during the day and at night close them up.... but.... then at night the only "window" would be the hole on the floor... help- any suggestions!I am from ohio so i need something that works in the winter months too

 

[bald Rooster]

When its hot out I say you need a lot of ventilation , Hardware cloth over some secure frames would be good.
In the winter months you still need ventilation but I'm not a cold weather chicken keeper so I can not help you there.

 

[GuapoDad]

Central Texas is hot summers and decent winters. We've had success with wide high windows and a gap on top, slanted roof protected by hard cloth. I built it with that recommendation, bad smell, gases, heat, etc will raise. Thus that gap. I think I have a picture of our coop on my profile. So far, it's working. Zero bad smell.