Things you've learned while building your coop...

[MelissaTXRn]

Love all the ideas!
Sloped egg boxes

 

[Corona~Barb]

Yes, I will be building a few in the next year (did I say *a few*??) and love to hear others' ideas. I rarely come up with good ones myself.

 

[hosspak]

I have a ramp pulley system which closes the coop house from the outside, one of my better ideas.
My wish list;
1. chicken nipples that don't leak. Mine still leak after following all the tips found on the interweb.
2. Finding an accurate set of plans for a coop. I'm spent too much money on materials and almost a week of labor building an awesome coop. I'm glad I practice measure twice and cut once because the plans I found were a bit off.
3. I need to find a way to train my birds to pick up their own feathers and make pillows for my wife.

 

[hosspak]

My son and I had a great time building this coop.













Installed a autofilling water system for under $40 dollars.



Yes, this is me, inside the coop trying to fix leaks and showing the birds how to use the nipples.

 

[OKchkman]

The main thing I learned was build the coop before you get the chickens.....

 

[wwzippybean]

Use a pair of pliers to start the nail in hardware cloth staples... Good finger saver!

 

[Gryphonslife]

If you want to paint your inside coop what type of paint is safe for the chickens? Water based.thamks.

 

[Gryphonslife]

What type of paint is safe to use inside a coop...water based? Thanks, Newbie.

 

[toofarout]

What type of paint is safe to use inside a coop...water based? Thanks, Newbie.

Milk Paint is one paint that once dried is totally safe.
There should be other types as well.

 

[pipemum]

I have my coop and run about 6" from my shed. The walls of the run are hardware cloth and 2x4s. With all of the scratching chickens do, in less than a year, about 8" of sand and shavings have made its way from the run into the space between the shed and run. I need to power hose the debris out, since it's piled high enough to move from the concrete shed footer and is now against the shed OSB panel and seems like a fire hazard. Lesson learned-- I'm going to attach a 1' section of plywood to the bottom of the run on the shed side to keep the debris in run!