Raised Coop - Pros & Cons

[damselfish]

Ours is elevated on those Dek-Blocks, so not raised way up in the way that some of these are. Maybe about 12 inches?

We love it. No worries about predators digging under. No rodent problems. The chickens do hide under there for shade or to get out of the rain but they are free range so they're only there occasionally. We've never had any eggs laid under there.

I'd highly recommend it.

 

[Giddi-Up]

Nice Coops Everyone

 

[Daphne16]

My main reason is to keep rats out (that was what I was told) and give extra run space. We are building our this coming weekend.

 

[lorihadams]

here's mine when we first built it....I love it cause I can push the wheelbarrow up to it and just rake everything right out. We now have it in a huge run and it is painted red with no attached fencing and they go under there to eat and get out of the sun.

our rabbit hutch on the left is now our duck house.

 

[ki4got]

lorihadams said "here's mine when we first built it....I love it cause I can push the wheelbarrow up to it and just rake everything right out. We now have it in a huge run and it is painted red with no attached fencing and they go under there to eat and get out of the sun."

I'm wondering what the dimensions on this are and how many chickens (large or bantam) this can house comfortably? I like the idea of storing suff underneath or allowing shelter. maybe a bit of both.

I'm still in the planning stages for my 'large' coop, and have just started construction on my small portable one (for 4-5 bantams)

In addition I like a raised coop because we sometimes get torrential rains and anything on the ground fills up with runoff. The one i'm working on right now will be raised 4-6" off the ground to prevent this (hopefully).
Thanks
Karen

 

[birdygirl123]

Oh man!, can you take pictures of the insides? I would love to see how you have your indoor pen. I'm converting and wanting the extra space too, so I'm looking for ideas.. Your set up looks awesome!..

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[Life is Good!]

We're in Northern Illinois - snowy country - so yes, I raised my coop so I didn't have to shovel snow out of it! Especially after the blizzard which left 2' of snow in one night.

Also, the coop is in our floodplain area of our acreage (close to barn), so I wanted it higher than the highest flood we've had yet (in 15yrs). So the chicks can stay high and dry, even if all the pumps fail and we turn into river overflow (yet again).

Ours is about 14" off the ground (two steps to get up) and a walk-in 8' x 6' x 6' high coop. For our cold winter, I'm planning on putting bales of hay around the bottom open area of the coop. Hopefully, no one will move into that space! The run does NOT include this underneath space. Since it's built next to a tree, there's plenty of shade.

Hope this helps.

 

[1muttsfan]

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Will do as soon as it stops raining (torrential downpour here today)

 

[birdygirl123]

That would be awesome.. Thank you so much!... OH NO@ the rain.. !.. Yea, Its pretty windy here today.. Knocked the kids swing set over.. no use in doing anything outside.. Will get blown away!.. You would have thought we moved back to wyoming or something.. geeze..

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Will do as soon as it stops raining (torrential downpour here today)

 

[1muttsfan]

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I am also curious about dimensions - length, width, height, how far off the ground? I was thinking about building something like this for temporary shelter for the boys (will only need to be used in the summer, about 4 months)