Suburban chicken farmers - coop ideas

[piopiochix]

Hello all! I've been a long time lurker and have learned so much from this community! I live in the SF Bay Area so very temperate weather where it never gets too cold and not usually very hot, I'm over on the mountain in some of the coastal fog. I'd like to finally get started with chickens and I love the idea of a (permanent) hoop coop for 4 chickens, but making it from 2 panels so that it also could be big enough as their run and use the deep litter cleaning method. Idea is to start with 2 chickens (a friend's flock is too big and she has 2 she wants to rehome to me) and then get 2 more in spring. I still plan to let them free roam in our yard during the day. BUT problem is, my husband thinks that we should at least start with something with a much lower profile. I am planning to put the coop in the far corner of the property, but close to the fence and he's worried our neighbors wont like it, but it technically is still far enough from the local law of how far from a dwelling.

Do people have alternative coop design ideas (or prefab ones that aren't crap) for a suburban backyard chicken owner? Also showed my husband the Omlet Eglu because someone is selling a used one locally but he thinks its too ugly.

 

[Debbie292d]

Hi, and welcome to BYC!

We have a Coop Forum you could take a look through. These were all built by our members. Many have step-by-step instructions, blueprints, etc. Several are very beautiful. I think you could find a few in there that would work great for you. There's also runs in some of them.

I don't think there's anyone here that would recommend the prefabs sold in farm stores or Amazon. They tend to never hold even half the chickens they say they will, and fall apart in a couple of years.

The best thing for keeping predators away from chickens is 1/2" hardware cloth, so I'd start watching for sales.

 

[nuthatched]

Definitely don't buy an omelet or any other prefab, their inhumanly small and aren't built for the best interest or health of chickens.

 

[saysfaa]

I had a similar problem - wanting a low profile coop. We built what looks like a standard shed but has some modifications. Technically, we ordered one from a shed-building company with a few custom features.

We made the roof overhang the walls by six inches. Most sheds have very little if any roof overhang. We left the eaves open and added a ridge vent. We put in bigger windows than is typical on the east end.

And more doors. The shed has the typical double doors on the west end that swing open so a riding mower could be put in it. Also, a wide door on the south side. We put metal lath across that and left it open day and night all year.

Then added a fence across the middle to divide the interior into a coop in the back and a secure walk-in space in the front. I stored chicken feed, bedding, and garden tools in the walk in space.

In the summer, the eave vents, ridge vent, windows, and south door were fully open all the time. Sometimes also the west doors.

In the winter, only the south door was open. That made a three-sided box that meant abundant ventilation with no drafts at all.

It worked very, very well in all aspects for three years (or was it four?) - for the chickens, for me, for the neighbors, and for the people who bought our house and did not want chickens but did want a nice shed.

We made it 10x14, our 5 chickens had 8x14 of it for their coop/run combo. They had enough space even when they couldn't free range. The concept would work with different sizes.

 

[saysfaa]

Oh. It doesn't allow for deep litter inside the coop. I used deep bedding - a foot or more of mostly leaves, some dry grass, some wood shaving and wood chips, and such. It stayed dry until I scooped it out to put on the compost pile.

 

[Mother of Chaos]

I had a similar problem - wanting a low profile coop. We built what looks like a standard shed but has some modifications. Technically, we ordered one from a shed-building company with a few custom features.

We made the roof overhang the walls by six inches. Most sheds have very little if any roof overhang. We left the eaves open and added a ridge vent. We put in bigger windows than is typical on the east end.

And more doors. The shed has the typical double doors on the west end that swing open so a riding mower could be put in it. Also, a wide door on the south side. We put metal lath across that and left it open day and night all year.

Then added a fence across the middle to divide the interior into a coop in the back and a secure walk-in space in the front. I stored chicken feed, bedding, and garden tools in the walk in space.

In the summer, the eave vents, ridge vent, windows, and south door were fully open all the time. Sometimes also the west doors.

In the winter, only the south door was open. That made a three-sided box that meant abundant ventilation with no drafts at all.

It worked very, very well in all aspects for three years (or was it four?) - for the chickens, for me, for the neighbors, and for the people who bought our house and did not want chickens but did want a nice shed.

We made it 10x14, our 5 chickens had 8x14 of it for their coop/run combo. They had enough space even when they couldn't free range. The concept would work with different sizes.

I so wish that I could have commandeered our 100-year-old shed for a combo coop/run and storage. Alas, it is full to the brim with storage, but we’re doing ok.

 

[piopiochix]

I had a similar problem - wanting a low profile coop. We built what looks like a standard shed but has some modifications. Technically, we ordered one from a shed-building company with a few custom features.

We made the roof overhang the walls by six inches. Most sheds have very little if any roof overhang. We left the eaves open and added a ridge vent. We put in bigger windows than is typical on the east end.

And more doors. The shed has the typical double doors on the west end that swing open so a riding mower could be put in it. Also, a wide door on the south side. We put metal lath across that and left it open day and night all year.

Then added a fence across the middle to divide the interior into a coop in the back and a secure walk-in space in the front. I stored chicken feed, bedding, and garden tools in the walk in space.

In the summer, the eave vents, ridge vent, windows, and south door were fully open all the time. Sometimes also the west doors.

In the winter, only the south door was open. That made a three-sided box that meant abundant ventilation with no drafts at all.

It worked very, very well in all aspects for three years (or was it four?) - for the chickens, for me, for the neighbors, and for the people who bought our house and did not want chickens but did want a nice shed.

We made it 10x14, our 5 chickens had 8x14 of it for their coop/run combo. They had enough space even when they couldn't free range. The concept would work with different sizes.

I'd love to see pics if you have any!

 

[piopiochix]

Hi, and welcome to BYC!

We have a Coop Forum you could take a look through. These were all built by our members. Many have step-by-step instructions, blueprints, etc. Several are very beautiful. I think you could find a few in there that would work great for you. There's also runs in some of them.

I don't think there's anyone here that would recommend the prefabs sold in farm stores or Amazon. They tend to never hold even half the chickens they say they will, and fall apart in a couple of years.

The best thing for keeping predators away from chickens is 1/2" hardware cloth, so I'd start watching for sales.

The coop examples are SO helpful!!! Thank you for sharing this!!

Update: I've fully gotten my husband on board to building a coop and gathered a lot of design ideas. This website and people are truly the best!!!

We are thinking of doing a coop somewhat similar to this. We actually sketched one out together that looked similar and THEN found this post and were like wow this is better than ours haha. https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/wichita-cabin-coop.47747/

I've realized that based on our space to build and size of coop/run I really need to cap max chickens at 5, likely keeping it just at 4 as the optimal number. We do plan to free range in our yard, goal being daily, but I want the run to still not be too small so that if daily doesn’t happen or if when we travel they need to stay in there a couple days that they will be ok.

We are considering: 4' wide x 10' long x 6' tall run (40 sq ft) with a 4'x4' coop (16 sq ft).

2 roost bars? and 2 nest boxes is what I am thinking but would love feedback on that.

Here is where I am struggling to figure out inside coop specifics. Ideally I wouldn’t bump out the nesting box and put inside, but based on what I am reading it seems like that wouldn’t leave enough space inside the coop for 4-5 chickens.

For coop portion:
6’ height on one side an 5’ on backside
2’ open space below coop (would like it to be ‘3 but not sure realistically there is enough room unless we add 1’ to height)
Leaves 3-4’ height for chickens in coop
Floor up: 1’ needed for deep litter method
Then 1’ for nesting boxes
So roosting bars would be 2’ from the ground, set at the top of where the nesting boxes are, leaving 1-2’ room for the chickens to roost. This is why I am thinking 2 roost bars would be good since I don’t expect they’d use the side with only 1’ height.

Is this sounding like a good plan to people? I need to sketch it out more and then can post that too.

 

[rosemarythyme]

Overall the numbers you have could possibly be enough for 4 docile standard sized birds, 5 would be pushing the space you have.

Not sure how difficult it would be to alter the plans, but if you can go bigger (especially wider) that would be optimal. 4' for a run is narrow and can possibly lead to pecking order issues as chickens can have a personal bubble up to about 5-6' wide. If the plan is to free range the vast majority of the time (like the entire day vs. 2 hrs and then the rest of the day in the run) then you can cheat on the run space a bit more.

You won't be doing deep litter in a coop like this. Deep bedding maybe, but 1' deep is a lot thicker than most people would go. 4-6" is probably more what you can expect, maybe 8" max, so plan with that in mind.

For 4 birds 1 roost would be sufficient, but if you wanted a 2nd roost (which isn't a bad idea, but harder to lay out) then consider that birds need about as much space in front of a roost to land as the roost is high, plus a minimum of 12" from the wall and 14-16" between the roosts. So you can plot that out and see how feasible it is.

 

[saysfaa]

I'd love to see pics if you have any!

I'll try to find better pictures.