Although I've had poultry of one sort or other most of my life, my present coop (which is a little over a year old) is the first one that I actually built (with the help of my son, daughter and son-in-law, who is good at that sort of stuff). It is 8 x 8 ft, and I built a "droppings pit-style" roost out of closely spaced 2 x 4s that the birds can comfortably roost or even "lounge about" on. The whole roost is about 2 ft x 4 ft in area and about 2 ft from the floor. I put solid boards around it to keep the birds out of the manure. It can all be taken apart for cleaning. Most of the manure falls through, although I give it a quick scrape each morning to remove any droppings that didn't. Very little poop is ever in the bedding. I also put a door in the wall against where this roost is built, which I can open and scrape out the accumulated manure periodically (once a week or every other week). The birds (17 hens and 1 rooster...he was a sexing mistake) have a 320 sq ft run with a top. We have about 2.5 acres, much of it woods, and I know they'd enjoy foraging in it, but I don't dare let them because there are too many hawks around here.
