We redesigned a old playhouse that we had at our farm. Kept the exterior walls of it but added windows, the cupula and other items on it. This is the view of it from our back porch.
We originally got 11 chickens from some friends of ours from South Dakota, however fell in love with them pretty fast so we decided to created the bottom side of the coop into another area, got more chickens from a local store and are using the bottom as the "free ranging" birds.
Had to install a automatic coop door and this might be the BEST thing I did. I will be making another one for the downstairs once we let them out. Even Big Poppa approves of it.
Picture of my design for the watering system that I built. I have since expanded it for the downstairs birds but this works great. Still have to fill it about every 3 days, but beats filling it daily. This supplies the outside run area, inside upstairs and downstairs areas.
Small brooder area that I built using some recycled pallets that I got. Right now we have 3 chickens that hatched and are in there. Works great. We do have a larger area once they get bigger that we move them to.
Every coop needs a chandelier in it. We had this in the playhouse and just decided to keep it iin there. We did have to place welded wire around it as the chickens decided to roost up there.
The chicken swing out in the run area. They actually like to use it.
That is "Irv". Most of the chickens like to sit on the roof that is covering the feeding and watering area in the run.
Downstairs feeding tube that I just put in. Holds a lot of food and seems to be working well. You can also see the access to the 6 nesting boxes that we have for downstairs.
Young birds that are downstairs right now. These were purchased this past summer and are still not ready for anything.
Recently added area for the ducks that we have. Feebie and Joey love their area and their house.
Still have to paint the area for the ducks white to match the chicken run area.
Upstairs nesting box egg collecting area that can be done from outside the coop.
Picture of the entire coop area with the duck area and also the old fashioned light that I made for the top of the coop.
Had to add the Fresh Eggs sign to the door and of course the Rooster Planter
Inside the Brooder area. Have a small pvc feeder for these girls in here.
Picture of the upstairs nesting boxes before the chickens got there. We have since added curtains and they seem to love 2 of the boxes.....can't seem to find out why they are not using the 3rd one, however I did find a egg in it the other day, so maybe soon.
Outside watering and feed station in the run. We use all nipples for our birds. You can also see the feeder that I built with a window on it so I can see the feed level inside of it. The water line that serves this does get shut off in the winter.
Big Poppa and his ladies. the two large windows in this picture are currently closed for the winter, however we do open them in the summer months.