The Garden Loft for Eggstraordinary Ladies

[khorvath]

Just wondering what you think of the coop now after a few more winters? I am highly considering this coop and LOVE your modifications. I'm concerned about it being too drafty in the winter with the open ceiling. Do you feel like the angle of the roof ever catches the drafts bringing them into the coop?

Do you ever use the deep litter method with this coop? Wondering if that would work here as well.

Thanks.

UPDATE 3/2018:

Hi all,

Some of you asked about the double-roosts and the weather-proofing, so I thought I'd give an update now that we've had the coop for about 6 months and through the winter. So far the coop is working out GREAT.

We had a record-breaking cold winter here in North Carolina, so I got a good opportunity to test out my weather-proofing. We had a week of single digits and ton of snow (I literally cannot remember a time it's been colder for longer here) and I moved all 8 chickens (chicks and old hens, now merged) into the "winter side" and we had zero issues. After comments received here (thanks everyone!) I had taken out one of the double roosts on the "summer" side where they live most of the time, but out of laziness left both up in the winter side. Good news--there weren't any problems with feather pulling and no poop on the walls, nor any problems for the hens (even the old girls) getting on the roosts. I'm still glad I took it out of the "summer" side, just to be safe, but don't plan on fixing the "Winter" side as they're not in there often. All 8 are content in half the coop, so I haven't taken out the central wall to enlarge the coop and am back to using it for storage.

One difference between this coop and the last one that has made a big difference is painting the inside of the coop white. In our old coop, which was wood-stained, the chickens never wanted to go in the coop, but preferred to sleep on the roost in the run. It's not a problem as the whole coop is predator-roof, but we keep sweet PDZ in the coop, which cleans up better than sand. Now the chickens put themselves to bed in the coop, and we're thinking it's because it is so much brighter in there.

View attachment 1312935

 

[aart]

Just wondering what you think of the coop now after a few more winters?

I wonder too, but looks like @Caity hasn't been around for almost a year.

 

[MSgt Mike]

Just wondering what you think of the coop now after a few more winters? I am highly considering this coop and LOVE your modifications. I'm concerned about it being too drafty in the winter with the open ceiling. Do you feel like the angle of the roof ever catches the drafts bringing them into the coop?

Do you ever use the deep litter method with this coop? Wondering if that would work here as well.

Thanks.

We finished our Garden Loft last September and love it. We started with a single roost in the hen house but moved it over about a month ago and added the second. Zero issues with poop on the walls and they have no problems getting up and down. The open ceiling is great and I don't feel the angle of the roof is any problem. We also added a roll out nest box to the end instead of the boxes in the plans. They aren't using it yet but at this point only one is laying. John is super helpful also. Now we're getting ready to add 5 of the modules from his other set of plans. Should have those done in a couple weeks.