Prep for this coop is hot hard work!

[jeria]

71 chickens you must live in the country. I'm in a city neighborhood and the max per zoning is 6 and no roosters. No homeowners association to deal with but I do want my coop and run to look nice.

Any project I do seems to take 4 times longer and cost at least twice as much as planned. Never fails... Thank goodness for overtime pay. The raised coop will be 4x6 enclosed in an 8x10 run all covered with a slant roof plywood covered with white metal roofing. Free ranging unless supervised is not an option I'm going to try due to predators. The "skirting" won't be very deep because to dig it in deep it would take heavy equipment in the clay/loess soil.

A raised bed with tiles under it, sounds elaborate also pretty predator safe.

 

[morganalefae]

71 chickens you must live in the country. I'm in a city neighborhood and the max per zoning is 6 and no roosters. No homeowners association to deal with but I do want my coop and run to look nice.

Any project I do seems to take 4 times longer and cost at least twice as much as planned. Never fails... Thank goodness for overtime pay. The raised coop will be 4x6 enclosed in an 8x10 run all covered with a slant roof plywood covered with white metal roofing. Free ranging unless supervised is not an option I'm going to try due to predators. The "skirting" won't be very deep because to dig it in deep it would take heavy equipment in the clay/loess soil.

A raised bed with tiles under it, sounds elaborate also pretty predator safe.

I got lucky the ppl who owned the place before me and my husband did all the work plus it has tons of earth worms there and my girls just love them.

 

[Gail Laubenthal]

Back in March, I asked my wife if I needed to build a new brooder or do any remodeling in the coop, expecting her to want more chicks this spring. She said "no, we have enough for right now".
Beginning of May, we had 2 hens hatch out 12 chicks, 8 survived. No big deal, we still have plenty of room. 3 weeks ago my wife ordered 25 chicks from McMurray's. 26 arrived, all survived. She also brought home another 5 chicks the same day her order arrived, all survived.
We have 4 other hens sitting on 5-6 eggs each. If only half survive that's another 10 or more. The heat index is at 100 degrees here already. Right now it's 7pm. The temp is 84 and the humidity is 82%. And I need all kinds of remodeling to hold these 40+ new chickens that we weren't supposed to be getting.
This could have been done in March when it was 70, but noooooo we aren't getting any chicks this year! But at least I'm not dragging 40 bags of dirt around. I feel for you...

You sound like my husband. We have/had 18 hens in March from last springs hatch. They are laying around 14 eggs a day so I had plenty for the family and some to sell. Then when more people wanted my free range eggs, I decided to incubate some of my fertilized eggs...I hatched 9, and 2 teacher friends of mine hatched 8 more, and I bought 25 pullets from the local farm store. Oh, and I have always wanted a Maran, so I bought 2 hens and a roo 8 weeks old. Now I am faced with a situation of where I will house all of these hens (and a few roos) when they mature and begin laying eggs. That's were my recently retired husband comes into the picture. We are going to build a half-hoop coop using 5 cattle panels. It will be 21 feet long and 13 feet wide, 7 or so feet high, but will have one straight side and the other curved. It is amazing how my hobby has become his honey-do list's #1 item. I will keep everyone posted. The 10' 4x6's are in the ground so far. Don't you just love those fresh eggs?

 

[morganalefae]

You sound like my husband. We have/had 18 hens in March from last springs hatch. They are laying around 14 eggs a day so I had plenty for the family and some to sell. Then when more people wanted my free range eggs, I decided to incubate some of my fertilized eggs...I hatched 9, and 2 teacher friends of mine hatched 8 more, and I bought 25 pullets from the local farm store. Oh, and I have always wanted a Maran, so I bought 2 hens and a roo 8 weeks old. Now I am faced with a situation of where I will house all of these hens (and a few roos) when they mature and begin laying eggs. That's were my recently retired husband comes into the picture. We are going to build a half-hoop coop using 5 cattle panels. It will be 21 feet long and 13 feet wide, 7 or so feet high, but will have one straight side and the other curved. It is amazing how my hobby has become his honey-do list's #1 item. I will keep everyone posted. The 10' 4x6's are in the ground so far. Don't you just love those fresh eggs?

Like the sound of the coop pls post pictures when you do it pretty pls.

 

[Gail Laubenthal]

Like the sound of the coop pls post pictures when you do it pretty pls.

We started yesterday by setting the posts

 

[Gail Laubenthal]

We looked at many many hoop coop versions and decided on a half hoop because I will have up to 50 birds and I want to also keep my brooder in there (on the straight wall). My husband wants his shed parking bays back, which now houses 2 coops, a brooder box and run, a dog kennel (with Marian's) and my 25 2 month old pullets We will post pics as we go along

 

[aart]

View attachment 1048973 View attachment 1048975
We started yesterday by setting the posts

Start new build thread?
https://www.backyardchickens.com/forums/coop-run-design-construction-maintenance.9/create-thread

 

[Gail Laubenthal]

Start new build thread?
https://www.backyardchickens.com/forums/coop-run-design-construction-maintenance.9/create-thread

Thanks...did it

 

[Gail Laubenthal]

Just posted

 

[aart]

Thanks...did it

..and here it is, will follow along https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/new-half-hoop-coop-build.1180885/