Question for land owners

[Weiden Farm]

Ours is down a hill from the house. The hill slops down some 60 feet and the chicken coop ends up being about 250 feet away.
We can see them in the run from our dining room window, and they are far enough to never have any odor.

I included a picture from when we were building - need more pictures

 

[jettgirl24]

I have 5 acres. I had several requirements for my coop:

1) It needed to be close enough to the house to run water and possibly electric to it
2) Close enough to the common areas of the house to hear the chickens during the day, not close to the master bedroom so that the roosters drive us nuts early in the morning
3) Be in an area that stays relatively dry here in the PNW winters
4) Be in a place that is convenient for doing chicken chores
5) Not take up the horses' pasture area or our entertaining area
6) Not take up my vegetable beds unless I want to put them there for weed control

I ended up building at the bottom of a terrace in front of my horse barn. It's about 30' from our house and on the opposite side of the master bedroom so the rooster noise is almost nothing. It's about 20' from the entrance to the barn so I can do all of my horse and chicken chores in the same area and not be running to opposite ends of the property before work. I store my chicken food in the feed room in my barn so feedin will be convenient as well. I'm building auto feeders so the time spent feeding will be even less when those are done. The footing there is gravel and we'll be putting sand on top in the run so drainage should be really good. It's also situated so that I can set up rain barrels on the terrace which run into the coop for easy watering. If I run out of water in the rain barrels in the summer the hose is right at the barn so I can either fill the barrels up when needed or water directly from the hose.

View from the house:

View from my vegetable beds of the front of the house and barn:
http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j114/jettgirl24/CoopRoof2.jpg

 

[IShavedMyLegsForThis]

We have ours approx. 8 feet from along side our house. Using DE, we have no flies or smell. I wanted it close enough to hear them (and anything trying to get in uninvited) and it's next to a hose for water plus it's approx. 3 feet from an in-ground composter. Easy to toss treats to the girls and compost anything they don't eat (watermelon rinds, etc.).

A bonus is that our kitties love sitting in the window watching them all day. Free kitty TV!

 

[Arkantex]

Fred's Hens, I wasn't planning on building the coop over the leach field. I know that building structures on the tank or leach field is a big no no. My concerns were if I build the coop/run on the North side of my house, some of the leach field will be inside the run. Do you guys think that will be a problem?

 

[cassidy22]

Our chicken coop is mobile. I make sure that before winter strikes, that it is close to the house, so I don't have to trudge across my field in teh snow to bring them food. It also has to be close to water and electricity, so I can heat their waterers, run a lamp if I want, and get water easily in the winter. The rest of the year I don't care. It can be anywhere on our 6 acres, as long as my dogs can protect them from predators.

Our turkey shed is free standing, outside of our actual fenced in yard, but in the pasture. Close to water and electricity, close so the dogs can protect them in winter without having to go too far.

 

[Midwest Lizabeth]

Arkantex:
Just a thought. . .have you considered a trailer-type coop? You could move it around. We live on similar acreage and most of it had fencing of some type. We put our trailer-coops out in one of the already fenced lots and move them around with our lawn tractor. We do have a LSG. There's so many neat examples of different styles of coops to look through on this site. Good luck with whatever you build.
Liz

 

[Arkantex]

I was originally thinking about doing a tractor style coop but none of my land is fenced in yet. So I would have to build/have a portable fence as well or get another dog b/c Turbo (my boxer) is an inside dog.

We are hoping to get it all fenced in within the next few years, but that is not for sure.

 

[carladababe]

This is a picture of my chickens coop last December before I got the girls, I'm standing about 10 feet from my dog. 11 chickens call it home, and I keep it clean and dry. The wind direction normally blows away from the house. No smells and in the winter snow I don't have to hike far.

 

[Mac in Wisco]

Quote:
When I lived in West Texas, we put the coop under the only shade in the backyard, a large mesquite tree.

It needn't be a portable tractor like many use here. Just make the coop movable. Use lag bolts on the floor framing instead of nails and bolt the floor framing to some large 6x6 or 8x8 skids so that you can drag the whole thing somewhere else on the property in a few years if you need to.

 

[Honeysucklefeathers]

Mine is about 50 feet from the house and I have water and electric. It is attached to the back of my greenhouse, measures 14x20 and works great to keep an eye on them.