Hello chicken lovers,
I got so much information and inspiration from this site that I want to give back.
So here comes my coop design...
As for many here, keeping chickens turned out to be much more fun than expected.
I do however have two small kids and a job that keeps me busy...
My most important requirements were:
1- Enough room for 4 chickens. We now have 3 females and they lay enough eggs so that we didn´t need to buy any since we have the birds. And there is still some room for more. Don´t underestimate chicken maths...
2- A coop layout that allows to not touch it for up to three days. It means enough food and drink (that´s easy) and a storage for the eggs (more tricky... see below).
3- Minimum maintenance effort. I want to enjoy having chickens. Cleaning the coop and any poop contact is less desirable for me.
All this worked out beautifully.
1- I can´t talk to them, but my feeling is that the three girls are happy with their surroundings. We offer them about 5 square meters of space.
2- This is more complicated. I did not want to use an automatic door opener (as an engineer, I have enough high tech around me all day - I wanted this to the a "back to the roots" project). This then means the door to their sleeping space is always open (I only close it in cold winter nights). Which requires the entire coop to be 100% predator proof. Burrying the hardware cloth into the ground was more work than expected.
3- Different to many other designs, our coop is right by the house. I wanted to be able to check on the chicks within a couple of minutes before leaving to work, without having to cross a maybe muddy lawn in maybe heavy rain. I can access our coop in my suit before leaving the house. And the now can be collected by a fully made up bride without ruining the dress.
This also means it is super easy to find someone to check on the chicks when we are in our 3 weeks summer vacation - it is it just a 5 minute job every 3 days, and you get 7-10 eggs for it!
For me, it was important to elevate the sleeping box, so that I can clean it without bending or ducking. It can easiliy be accesses standing upright, in a comfortable height.
We now enjoy our three chickens, and the fresh eggs they give us every day!
The most tricky part was the egg laying. I bought a ready built nest that was meant for the eggs to roll forward into a small tray. I changed the slope so that they would roll backwards, cut a hole into the back wall and they now roll into a small compartment that can be easiliy accessed from outside the coop. It needed a bit experimenting with slopes and couchoning to have the eggs safely roolling wihout breaking.
I put some firewood inside the big box to make laying eggs elsewhere more uncomfortable. They now always lay them where they should.
At the beginning, the chicks were pecking each other quite brutally. I thought that maybe they are just bored and put some branches for climbing and chicanes so that they can hide from each other. It works well. They seem to like the branches, even so the diameter is quite small.
Just check the photos. There are many users who post photos of brand new coops which makes it difficult to judge if the design really works in reality - my coop is is now proven in use for some months and looks accordingly. Less beautilful, but honest. Chickens are not very clean...
Thanks to all who shared their ideas here! If you have any questions, I will gladly answer them. Of course, I am eager to hear any suggestions!
Greetings from Germany,
Martin
I got so much information and inspiration from this site that I want to give back.
So here comes my coop design...
As for many here, keeping chickens turned out to be much more fun than expected.
I do however have two small kids and a job that keeps me busy...
My most important requirements were:
1- Enough room for 4 chickens. We now have 3 females and they lay enough eggs so that we didn´t need to buy any since we have the birds. And there is still some room for more. Don´t underestimate chicken maths...
2- A coop layout that allows to not touch it for up to three days. It means enough food and drink (that´s easy) and a storage for the eggs (more tricky... see below).
3- Minimum maintenance effort. I want to enjoy having chickens. Cleaning the coop and any poop contact is less desirable for me.
All this worked out beautifully.
1- I can´t talk to them, but my feeling is that the three girls are happy with their surroundings. We offer them about 5 square meters of space.
2- This is more complicated. I did not want to use an automatic door opener (as an engineer, I have enough high tech around me all day - I wanted this to the a "back to the roots" project). This then means the door to their sleeping space is always open (I only close it in cold winter nights). Which requires the entire coop to be 100% predator proof. Burrying the hardware cloth into the ground was more work than expected.
3- Different to many other designs, our coop is right by the house. I wanted to be able to check on the chicks within a couple of minutes before leaving to work, without having to cross a maybe muddy lawn in maybe heavy rain. I can access our coop in my suit before leaving the house. And the now can be collected by a fully made up bride without ruining the dress.
This also means it is super easy to find someone to check on the chicks when we are in our 3 weeks summer vacation - it is it just a 5 minute job every 3 days, and you get 7-10 eggs for it!
For me, it was important to elevate the sleeping box, so that I can clean it without bending or ducking. It can easiliy be accesses standing upright, in a comfortable height.
We now enjoy our three chickens, and the fresh eggs they give us every day!
The most tricky part was the egg laying. I bought a ready built nest that was meant for the eggs to roll forward into a small tray. I changed the slope so that they would roll backwards, cut a hole into the back wall and they now roll into a small compartment that can be easiliy accessed from outside the coop. It needed a bit experimenting with slopes and couchoning to have the eggs safely roolling wihout breaking.
I put some firewood inside the big box to make laying eggs elsewhere more uncomfortable. They now always lay them where they should.
At the beginning, the chicks were pecking each other quite brutally. I thought that maybe they are just bored and put some branches for climbing and chicanes so that they can hide from each other. It works well. They seem to like the branches, even so the diameter is quite small.
Just check the photos. There are many users who post photos of brand new coops which makes it difficult to judge if the design really works in reality - my coop is is now proven in use for some months and looks accordingly. Less beautilful, but honest. Chickens are not very clean...
Thanks to all who shared their ideas here! If you have any questions, I will gladly answer them. Of course, I am eager to hear any suggestions!
Greetings from Germany,
Martin
