The Girls' Coop is FINISHED!

[Wallis]

Fantastic! How many chickens will you house here?

 

[kynewbchickie]

Same here but we love in the city but have a huge lot so I'm introducing to an even more organic type of lifestyle. We are growing our own food as well.

Way to go!!! We have 1/2 acre garden with everything from arugula to zucchini started, all heirloom seeds and organic. The GMO stuff scares the bejeezus out of us, so that's why we we decided we were going to raise chickens and a huge garden when we moved into this house right before last Christmas. If we want red meat, I'm already "buddies" with a local beef farmer that raises his herds on non-GMO organic feed about 5 miles down the road, who is willing to trade his beef for good-quality eggs. With at least 24 pullets of high-production breeds (Aussies, EE, B. Orps, Black Giants here) I shouldn't have any issue getting him a dozen or so eggs, plus $30 for processing, for some very good quality beef. I also hunt, but don't take a deer except one every other year. And I use everything I possibly can from it.

 

[kynewbchickie]

Fantastic! How many chickens will you house here?

This is for my girls - I have 23 or 24 for certain out of a flock of 30. My cousin calls it the chicken penthouse. LOL Thank you for the compliment!

 

[DeerFangRanch]

Great job - I could life in that

 

[allsummedup]

Looks great!

 

[aart]

Do you have any venting up high above roost level...almost looks like there might a ridge vent? Sorry if I missed this.

Something else I just noticed....some of your nest boxes are higher than the roosts. If all roosts are not higher than the nests they may roost in nests and that means lots of poop in the nests.

 

[miquwid]

Way to go!!!  We have 1/2 acre garden with everything from arugula to zucchini started, all heirloom seeds and organic.  The GMO stuff scares the bejeezus out of us, so that's why we we decided we were going to raise chickens and a huge garden when we moved into this house right before last Christmas.  If we want red meat, I'm already "buddies" with a local beef farmer that raises his herds on non-GMO organic feed about 5 miles down the road, who is willing to trade his beef for good-quality eggs.  With at least 24 pullets of high-production breeds (Aussies, EE, B. Orps, Black Giants here) I shouldn't have any issue getting him a dozen or so eggs, plus $30 for processing, for some very good quality beef.  I also hunt, but don't take a deer except one every other year.  And I use everything I possibly can from it.

That's awesome! I'm looking into a few organic beef farmers myself but I'm not close enough to make a trade but once I get a small freezer imma by a whole cow

 

[kynewbchickie]

Great job - I could life in that

LOL! My husband calls it his "dog house" should he ever go "there" haha

 

[kynewbchickie]

Looks great!

Thank you very much!

 

[kynewbchickie]

Do you have any venting up high above roost level...almost looks like there might a ridge vent? Sorry if I missed this.

Something else I just noticed....some of your nest boxes are higher than the roosts. If all roosts are not higher than the nests they may roost in nests and that means lots of poop in the nests.

There are two small "attic" vents, but I don't know that will be sufficient - especially since I've got to close off the loft/attic space anyway. This is the main reason I'm going to have to add a couple more small width, long length windows on the west and east sides of the building.
I'm going to add higher roosts as the birds get bigger...one is 18" and the other is at 24" for the time being. I figured once they got to around 12 weeks, I'd move the roosts up higher, and then again at 15 weeks when we separate the boys from the girls. The problem we ran into was how to configure the nesting boxes and still have space - which is why we chose to stack them. The guy here in town affectionately called "Chicken Man" advised me of the height when he came to look over the building we'd purchased. I went with his recommendations. If it doesn't work or we're having issues with roosting in boxes, then we'll adjust it the best we can. I'm going to hang their waterer and feeder from one of the loft joists in front of the nesting boxes, and will put down another 1x6" board as a border for the roost area so I can lay some Agrisand down to help make poo cleaning a bit easier. I'll scoop it every other day, and plan to do complete coop cleaning once every month. I invested in some Poultry Protector for their brooder and can report no mites, fleas (even with two dogs and a cat in the house), no lice issues so far. I've already bought a huge bundle of wormwood that is drying as we speak to hang in the loft of the coop - wormwood is a great natural deterrent for fleas, ticks, mites, and lice.