Lanfear
Songster
I am new to chickens (and the chicken craze that goes with it). My mom and I are building a coop that will eventually house the chicks/keets that hatch from the 56 eggs we're getting Saturday... nothing like a deadline to make you decisive and get to work!
**Important thing to note: Temperatures range from around 30°C to sometimes as cold as -40°C! My winter plan is to move the chickens into the greenhouse that's built into the barn and build a coop within the greenhouse, as well as utilize some of the barn itself for additional roaming space during our annoyingly cold winters. This coop we are building does not have to be insulated as we plan on using it during spring-summer-fall.
We both really both raised and walk-in coops, but prefer style of a raised coop. I want to plan for a coop that'll house 40 birds at 4 sq ft per bird (160 sq ft coop). *Most* coop plans for this many birds are walk-in coops... I understand the deeper the coop is, the harder it is to clean (reach the back of coop). Does anyone have a raised coop that is 8' deep? I'm worried we will regret making it 8' deep if we go with a raised design... I know many raised coops are only 6' deep. Does the extra 2' make it that much harder to clean? In order to decrease board wastage, my thinking is to build a 8' x 20' base coop. Alternatively, we could build a few smaller coops side by side as we will have 6 or so heritage breeds that at some points I would like to get pure breeds from rather than letting them all free range together....
**Important thing to note: Temperatures range from around 30°C to sometimes as cold as -40°C! My winter plan is to move the chickens into the greenhouse that's built into the barn and build a coop within the greenhouse, as well as utilize some of the barn itself for additional roaming space during our annoyingly cold winters. This coop we are building does not have to be insulated as we plan on using it during spring-summer-fall.
We both really both raised and walk-in coops, but prefer style of a raised coop. I want to plan for a coop that'll house 40 birds at 4 sq ft per bird (160 sq ft coop). *Most* coop plans for this many birds are walk-in coops... I understand the deeper the coop is, the harder it is to clean (reach the back of coop). Does anyone have a raised coop that is 8' deep? I'm worried we will regret making it 8' deep if we go with a raised design... I know many raised coops are only 6' deep. Does the extra 2' make it that much harder to clean? In order to decrease board wastage, my thinking is to build a 8' x 20' base coop. Alternatively, we could build a few smaller coops side by side as we will have 6 or so heritage breeds that at some points I would like to get pure breeds from rather than letting them all free range together....