Rate my coop

[Twitchy]

Thanks for the suggestions everyone, they're very helpful, and thanks for such a quick response.

If anyone stumbling on my design is so inclined, please feel free to use it yourself as long as it's non-commercial.

If I end up getting chickens (I'll have to commit a minor act of civil disobedience to do so) the info you've provided will be very useful.

 

[bluey]

Quote:

No...it's DE. I usually sprinkle some in the bottom of the coop and in the nesting area to deter bugs and mites...

 

[mountaintopchicken]

I don't know how windy it is in your yard, but at my place a long, tall, and narrow design like that would be in danger of getting flipped over by high winds. If you are in a sheltered area it might not be a problem for you. I would at least keep the prevailing wind direction in mind when I set it up, and use a wind break like a fence or a house as a buffer if available.

 

[onthespot]

i think i would make the floor of the upper room designed as a tray that pulls out whichever direction works best for you, for super easy cleaning, hosing off, what have you. Climbing a step stool and bending way over to stick your head into a smelly box and reaching as far as you can with some sort of cleaning implement that isn't quite the right size or shape to get the corners or to loosen up the poop isn't near as fun as pulling out the tray, scraping off debris into a can, and hosing it off and pushing it back in.

 

[flakey chick]

I have banties on 1/2" VINYL coated hardware cloth and I like it a lot. The girls are light enough that the wire doesn't seem to bother them, and I'm sure the vinyl cushion helps make it easy on their feet. The poop does slide through fairly well. Even the big pieces break up and slide through. About once a week I can hose it down no problems.

Currently I am doing something a little different that I think works great.I cover the wire floor with canvas and then wood chips. ]Even if they spill their water, it will dry out. It helps with the draft-free ventilation we strive for.

I have a drawer of wood shavings under their roost. I clean it out with a kitty litter scoop and do the same with anything else I see in their coop. Then when I need to clean it all out, I just roll up the canvas and dump it in my garden cart.

 

[speckledhen]

One critical mistake most people make is not having enough ventilation. Their poop and respiration contribute to the moisture in the coop and a moisture build-up could help cause frostbite and dangerous ammonia levels. You need vents that can open and close, with the openings covered with hardware cloth (I use the 1/2 in openings).

 

[waynesgarden]

I don't believe you said what part of the country you are in. Here in the frozen north, I found small access doors to the nests and feed/watering areas to be preferable to a hinged roof that I would have to shovel a foot of snow off in the mornings or to have to open up in a thunderstorm.

I did once have a temporary coop that chicks went into after the brooder. I had to open the top to feed them and in the mornings I was usually faced with an explosion of upwardly mobile chicks that I had to chase around the yard, let they became dog food for the neighborhood rotten mongrels.

I also am not a fan of wire floors. Bad on the feet of the birds and offer no insulative value.

Wayne

[edited because I was not a careful reader of the original post.]

 

[Nifty-Chicken]

Twitchy, that is a great looking design! Did you use Sketchup?

As you build it, PLEASE take LOTS of pics and create a BYC Coop Page and enter it into a contest!

 

[orcasislandchickens]

Nice little coop. Remember to site it properly. It is always much nicer when you turn it so that the sun shines in on an angle where it hits the run for at least a little while everyday. I actually added a piece of polycarbonate panel to one of the sides of mine as a windbreak and it is very nice there almost all of the time.