POWERING A COOP A DISTANCE AWAY FROM THE HOUSE HELP PLEASE!

[deeruth]

Hi there!

My mother and I Purchased a small homestead that was originally Monee Illinois one room school house built in 1863 in October. Our goal is to make our little homestead (just under 1 acre) surrounded by forest preserve our start at self sustainability. While balancing and creating a full orchard peaches, plums, apples, pears tree's, blueberry, raspberry and grape patches we decided the
coop and chicken's would be crucial. My mother as a child has a lot of knowledge to take care of the chickens and I am in charge
of making the coop. I am an aerospace quality control inspector so the construction should not be a problem. However, I am baffled
as to how to send power to the coop for the heat lamp, drinking water de-freezer (if that is a word! LOL) and other things I may
come across. I have installed ceiling fans and have minor electrical experience (Girl Power another LOL) but am looking for things
perhaps solar powered to do the job, unless someone has an easy design that my meager skills can perform.

Sorry to have rattled on so long! We are new to the site and just wanted to lay down our story. The coop will be located approx. 40 ft from our house.

Please help! Fellow BYC lovers.

 

[kmartinez]

I purchased solar shed lights from amazon, it has a solar panel I mounted on the roof of coop, i was unsure how bright they were so i ordered 2 one for each side of the coop, one is reachable from the door. It has a pull string to turn it on and off. one will get the job done 2 makes it much brighter to fool them on daylight hours. really easy to mount just a couple screws and it has alot of wire i am thinking at least 10 foot to be modest it could be longer. I did not need to use all that cord because i ran the cord through the top vents of the coop and hubby when he roofed my coop tucked the wire under the wavy roof panels in one of the humps..

My coop has no heat I went that way just because i read coops really do not need heat since it gets chickens accustom to it and if a power outage occurred in cold weather it will be really hard on chickens to adjust to the temps.

My coop is 90 feet from my house digging a trench for electric hmmm no not me thats alot of trenching LOL i think my codes requires electricity to be buried 2 feet..and steering clear of my septic system which i have lines that run almost the width of my property in the frontal area so trenching from my house around my tank and past those lines is a chore.

On the water I plan on using a heated dog bowl with a long extention cord..until i figure out how to build one with no electricity.

 

[medichick]

My coup with 3" X 6' opening under the eves is 100 ft from the house and my new Ameraucana chicks are 2 weeks old. They made it through -5 last night with only one heat lamp! I just ran an extension cord and one heat lamp. No troubles at all.

 

[ECBW]

40 ft is very manageable. The only time electricity is necessary is during winter for water warmer and light for laying. With warmer at less than 75w and light at 15w, a 16 gage outdoor extension cord would do the job. It gets removed during warmer seasons so will not impede use of your yard.

 

[cabincreations]

I know many will say no, don't do it...but all these years I have used an extension cord with a power bar in the coop. On the power bar I have my heat lamp plugged in for brooders all summer, and for keeping water from freezing during winter. I do not heat my coop at all, but it is insulated.
I also have a timer to a simple light on a lamp cord that hangs from the ceiling for 12 hours of light a day all winter long. (no need for it during summer.

 

[chickengeorgeto]

You'll need a copy of the "codes" in effect in your area. For lights and other low current uses, about 100 feet of 10 gauge UL cable with three wires and a ground is MORE than capable of powering TWO 110 volt 30 amp circuits. UL cable is water proof. There should be a web page that shows you how to wire up a 3 & a ground or 4 element electric cable. If not take out more life insurance on your hubby. No, just kidding, good luck.