Struggling A Little with Sizing of Coop

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OK, finished the house/coop pretty much. It ended up being a 10x10 living area with 2x10 of nesting area. Used the ondura roofing. The pullets don't really like to come in at night so I've been putting them in one by one. I have the house raised off of the ground about 2-3 feet with a subfloor and it's not extremely convenient getting them in every night. They like roosting in the scuppernong vines and just laying in the dirt. I tried putting the food in the house to bring them in at night, but nope that doesn't really help, either. I have heat lamps in the house at the top just to entice them in since it's dark, but that doesn't work so well either. When they are all in the house, I cut off the lights and let them go to bed. Going to try to figure out how to post pictures on here for critiques.
 
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My attempts at using natural limbs as roosting materials.
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This is their entrance - Underneath the wood that is in the doorway it is connected by hooks and eyes but is removeable and is able to be shut should I need to close the door and have the coop closed. In the back you can see the wall that I have pieced together a window and it's not an exceptional window, but I put a hardware cloth frame over the hole that wouldn't allow the birds to exit the hole. We'll see. Should allow plenty of ventilation. We aren't having crazy weather right now and it's close to our house so there isn't going to be any kind of crazy winds that will be coming in that window or rains that would go in there, either.

Also you can somewhat see on the right side, a piece of wood that holds the water system that the chickens just do not have a clue how to use. It's the http://www.beaktime.com/beakup.php product with the cups that hooks to the water hose. I bought a rainwater barrel that I can hook a water hose to so I don't have to hook it to the city water in case of leaks or anything breaks.

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This shows the whole living area and also the nesting area as well, as I haven't partitioned the nesting area off yet. It also shows my homemade feeder that someone gave me the idea of on youtube, I think. The chickens haven't warmed to it crazily, yet.. and they might not -- we shall see. I liked the idea of it. This picture was taken before I added another branch that the previous picture shows.
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This was an old picture - I've replaced these waterers for much larger ones now.
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This shows the external coop all closed up prior to the nesting area being finished. I added a vent though I didn't really think that ventilation would be an issue with the coop. I actually think in this picture the roof isn't even done! LOL I promise you it's all completed! haha!
 
junebuggena said:
New coop. You have to 'home' them to it. Keep them shut in for 2 or 3 days with food and water. Then you can let them loose. They should, at that point, get the idea.
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Wow! I totally didn't know that. Ok, so I have them in the house tonight. I guess I shouldn't let them out tomorrow? Thank you so much!
 
junebuggena said:
No. Just make sure they have food and water. I do suggest blocking off the underside of the coop. It's not going to be fun fetching eggs from under there.
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Blocking off? I thought it was good for them to have the shade? No? Yikes! That's why I elevated the house! LOL
 
Shade under coop is good, but you've got to be able to get under there yourself to retrieve eggs or injured bird or....??

Mine is elevated(exiting building) 24-30", so I blocked it off about 4' from edge of coop so I wouldn't have to crawl too far and they still have a dry place out of the weather.
 
Blocked it off today. And placed them back in the house tonight. I made a mistake and didn't cut on the lights before it got dark so the chickens didn't go in the house when it was dark. They eventually did. I had about 6 that were pretty defiant, and I had to manually place them in with some effort, but with enough time maybe they will all eventually get in the habit.

My question now is regarding the grass in the run.. it's starting to look pretty run down and it's pretty early on - looks like 6 months from now it might be gone? Anything I can do to prevent this or is it inevitable? Do I need to do anything now to prevent this?
 

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