Thoughts on my coop and run design?

[hippiestink]

I have 6 full-size hens and 2 bantam hens in an enclosed 4x6 meter run and a crummy prefab 1 square meter coop forsleeping in. They do fine, have had no behavior issues outside normal pecking order behavior, but the crummy prefab coop has many nooks and crannies that hide spiders and mites (mites are a constant issue).

I decided I was fed up with the prefab coop and went about researching and designing a new one. It'll be the same size, about 1square meter, amd will feature a slope roof instead of pitched. Husband owns a kitchen contracting business with his father and mother so lumber will probably cost us nothing. We decided on a clear courrogated pvc roof to let in light and cut cost on the roofing. The plastic's wavy nature will hopefully also help with venting. The plan is two nest boxes and roosts for the hens, and the whole coop up on either bricks or stilts.

We live in Belgium so light and heat are at a premium. We want plenty of light to get into the coop (hence clear plastic roofing) and we aren't concerned about overheating. I'll have the drawn plans up to see in the morning, since it's late.

 

[boskelli1571]

It sounds good - my only concern is do you have weasels over there? Could they access the birds via the corrugations?

 

[hippiestink]

We're in a city, we don't even really have owls or hawks. It's incredibly safe for chickens here. When we move into a house I'll consider a new coop design, but for now we have no worries about wild animals.

Though we have field mice that stop by. We solved that problem very quickly by never leaving feed out where rodents can get them.

 

[hippiestink]

I hear a lot of tell that a 1 meter square coop (about 4x4 ft) is WAY too small, but the run is so huge and they don't get locked up in the coop ever. They love being outside even when there's snow on the ground.

 

[hippiestink]

I have some time to post photos of my ideas. (I am not very good at drawing plans and I hope you can read my chicken scratch)



If it's not clear, the nesting box will be your standard box, with a single door on the outside so I can get into both nesting boxes. It's basically a rectangular box that will be lined with the same material as the floor. The flooring will be made from an office chair mat that a co-worker is throwing out. It's more than large enough.


This is a little doodle of what it should resemble when it's put together (minus the nesting box) and how it'll be placed in relation to the run. There's a few water mains and such in the run that my birds like to climb on, which aren't shown. They get infrequent use so I use one to put the water dispenser on. In all the current coop works okay, but there's too many cracks in it and there's so many little corners and angles in the current coop that mites like to nest in and spiders like to build webs in.

 

[Cacique500]

Run size is very good for 8 chickens...the coop is way too small. Roughly 0.4 sq meters per bird, so with 8 you'd need approx 3 sq meters.

 

[Egghead_Jr]

The nesting boxes are too high and I don't like the roosts but overall this is a good design. I tweaked mine and changed the roofing like you are thinking. Added hard wire to entire roof to stop weasels from getting in. Couldn't think of easy way to add only to high hat of roofing.

http://www.mansfieldfeed.com/news-updates/build-your-own-chicken-coop-2014-02-3056e

Near end of page on that link are is a thumbnail of Purina Chicken Hutch. Click that to view plans full size. It's right on board with what your thinking of making.

This is my take on that design for a larger and portable coop:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/1036728/my-4x7-moveable-coop-for-about-300

 

[hippiestink]

I actually thought about extending the coop about a meter to make it 1x2 meters and rectangular. Won't cost much more if I do it on the unsloped sides, I'm just not sure I need to if there's no behavioral issues with the current setup. I've always heard tell that coops size is largely dependent on the flock and their usual needs, and it's only ever used for sleeping in. I do know one thing though: the current coop is just not well made and it's falling apart.

 

[hippiestink]

Well I looked around and found a few "weekend project" lean-to sheds easily adapted to my purpose. I measured our flooring and it actually won't need cut (1.25x2 m plastic floor mat) so we'll be basing the whole design around that. The run abuts the back wall of our warehouse, so using that wall as the supporting wall saves cash and supplies.

Plan links:
http://myoutdoorplans.com/shed/free-lean-to-shed-plans/
http://www.hometips.com/diy-how-to/leanto-shed-build.html

Both will be about half the wall height given, as we don't need the height. Instead there will be stilts that the coop will rest on.