Thoughts On This Coop From TSC

[aart]

Change of plans. I'm scraping the pre-made idea and and making a coop. After much research, it's just far more cost effective not to mention better quality (which is what all you told me, lol).

8'x4' coop with 14'x8' run. I'm potentially at 11 chicks now - so, 3 sf in the coop and 10 in the run w/ 6 nesting boxes.

I'm just going to carve the time out and do it. I already drew up the design and made my material list.

I'll post pics when I'm done - just need my tax return to show up to start. Thanks again for all the help!!!

Chicken math already?!?!

Better go bigger

especially if you're in a cold climate.

Not sure if you mentioned your location...putting it in your profile can help folks give better answers/suggestions.

 

[Percheron chick]

The nesting boxes also need to be external. If they are inside, that reduces the floor space 1sq ft per box and you need to increase accordingly.

 

[Knoble Chickens]

The nesting boxes also need to be external. If they are inside, that reduces the floor space 1sq ft per box and you need to increase accordingly.

Not unless that is accounted for and the coop is sized accordingly. The coop I have dreamed up is 10'x4' for 8 cacklers and a accompanying 10'x10' run. I have planned for one end with boxes inside, creating a floor space of 36sq ft, making 4.5sq ft/bird for the coop, 12.5sq ft/bird for the run. I did this to reduce cost of the build. Having to buy another sheet of roofing material and extra siding etc. added at least $75 to the build for a external box. I also gain a storage area above the nesting boxes, accessible from the outside.

 

[thisjed]

I'm keeping the nesting boxes inside my coop - so, technically speaking, my coop is 4'x7' plus 1' of nesting boxes (2 stacked rows of 3 boxes per row). I've finally settled on 9 chickens as well which puts me a little over 3 sf per chicken. It's not the 4 sf some have noted - but it's a huge improvement over my initial plan of 1.4 sf per chicken - not to mention the coop is now draft free, solidly built, and well ventilated (2 windows with one at 1'x2' and another at 2'x2' - at opposite ends 8' apart to facilitate air flow).

The exterior dimensions are 4'x8' with 6' tall walls on one side and 5' tall walls on another side (roof slants front to back). I don't know if cf is a consideration, but I'll be at 176 cf. My coop will be about 2' off the ground with underneath incorporated into the run.

Planning on 8' of roosting bar which is a little more than 10" per chicken.

I'm keeping the nesting boxes inside simply for ease of construction.

Let me know if any of the above seems off or wrong somehow. Thanks!

 

[JenniferCNY]

I also agree that 3 nesting boxes is plenty.

 

[aart]

I'm keeping the nesting boxes inside my coop - so, technically speaking, my coop is 4'x7' plus 1' of nesting boxes (2 stacked rows of 3 boxes per row). I've finally settled on 9 chickens as well which puts me a little over 3 sf per chicken. It's not the 4 sf some have noted - but it's a huge improvement over my initial plan of 1.4 sf per chicken - not to mention the coop is now draft free, solidly built, and well ventilated (2 windows with one at 1'x2' and another at 2'x2' - at opposite ends 8' apart to facilitate air flow).

The exterior dimensions are 4'x8' with 6' tall walls on one side and 5' tall walls on another side (roof slants front to back). I don't know if cf is a consideration, but I'll be at 176 cf. My coop will be about 2' off the ground with underneath incorporated into the run.

Planning on 8' of roosting bar which is a little more than 10" per chicken.

I'm keeping the nesting boxes inside simply for ease of construction.

Let me know if any of the above seems off or wrong somehow. Thanks!

You don't need 6 nests, 3 is plenty.
CF doesn't doesn't really count, unless you use a poop board to 'extend' the SQFT....that can help, but hard to fit into the 4' width.
You're going to have to plan the space very carefully.

 

[fightingbunny]

Very early in this thread someone posted that they couldn't understand why people ignore good advice and buy prefab coops anyways. I just wanted to post an answer to the "why" I personally went with a cheap prefab coop. I hope this helps explain why at least this person would buy these coops even though thread after thread bashes them.

I was well aware that the TSC coop would be insufficient in the long term, especially if I added any more birds. I knew it wouldn't hold up for years and was flimsy. I also knew it was not generous in size. So it was an educated choice and not flippant.

Before my chicks arrived in the mail, I had never held a chicken or chick before. I had researched extensively what was involved in caring for chickens, but there is a world of a difference between reading in a book and slogging out in the rain to take care of chickens. So I figured there was a decent chance that I wouldn't make it through the winter before deciding I didn't want to keep them. Also, I was the only one in my household supportive of getting chickens, and if I didn't have time for them, I would have to get rid of them. (Just to reassure everyone, I had a rooster plan and a get-out-of-chickens plan)

In addition, I was bombarded with negative feedback that said every chicken has an extreme death probability at every point. Order twice as many chicks because a lot will die. But just wait, as they grow up, more will die. Just as you get eggs, predators will kill them all, etc. So I had no idea how many chickens I would actually have in 6 months! I figured I was very likely to have 2 chickens and thus the tiny coop would be fine.

The final factor was that I have little carpentry skills and it would take a LOT of time to build anything. I see a lot of comments like "just whip out a huge coop in a few days"! I wish I had that much ability and time in a day, but that doesn't apply in my case. It took me a bunch of weekends just to get a prefab coop set up LOL! I can allocate about 3-4 hours a week to building anything and thus it is a year project to build a "real" coop.

I figured I would know by the end of a winter if I was stuck on chickens and then I would start building a "real" coop. The prefab ones make great quarantine and brooding cages, so it isn't a waste of money and can be reused.

 

[Beekissed]

Very early in this thread someone posted that they couldn't understand why people ignore good advice and buy prefab coops anyways. I just wanted to post an answer to the "why" I personally went with a cheap prefab coop. I hope this helps explain why at least this person would buy these coops even though thread after thread bashes them.

I was well aware that the TSC coop would be insufficient in the long term, especially if I added any more birds. I knew it wouldn't hold up for years and was flimsy. I also knew it was not generous in size. So it was an educated choice and not flippant.

Before my chicks arrived in the mail, I had never held a chicken or chick before. I had researched extensively what was involved in caring for chickens, but there is a world of a difference between reading in a book and slogging out in the rain to take care of chickens. So I figured there was a decent chance that I wouldn't make it through the winter before deciding I didn't want to keep them. Also, I was the only one in my household supportive of getting chickens, and if I didn't have time for them, I would have to get rid of them. (Just to reassure everyone, I had a rooster plan and a get-out-of-chickens plan)

In addition, I was bombarded with negative feedback that said every chicken has an extreme death probability at every point. Order twice as many chicks because a lot will die. But just wait, as they grow up, more will die. Just as you get eggs, predators will kill them all, etc. So I had no idea how many chickens I would actually have in 6 months! I figured I was very likely to have 2 chickens and thus the tiny coop would be fine.

The final factor was that I have little carpentry skills and it would take a LOT of time to build anything. I see a lot of comments like "just whip out a huge coop in a few days"! I wish I had that much ability and time in a day, but that doesn't apply in my case. It took me a bunch of weekends just to get a prefab coop set up LOL! I can allocate about 3-4 hours a week to building anything and thus it is a year project to build a "real" coop.

I figured I would know by the end of a winter if I was stuck on chickens and then I would start building a "real" coop. The prefab ones make great quarantine and brooding cages, so it isn't a waste of money and can be reused.

That makes sense and is something I can understand. We don't often hear the full story or background on a person's decisions to get chickens until much much later, so to get to hear the way folks come around to such things and the thinking behind it is very helpful. Thanks for responding and laying it out for us like that, as it's something to keep in mind when we get asked these questions again. Maybe before we throw out advice we'll be able to ask a few more questions to see where people are coming from when they are thinking about getting these coops and even getting chickens.

 

[MimiBlue]

I just started my backyard flock. I have 8 chicks who are about 6 weeks old. We got this pre-fab coop from TSC. I think two of my girls may be boys, so that will bring me down to six...but time will tell on them. This is a decent beginner coop, especially for a residential area where you want it to look nice. I figure by the time I'm ready to build a bigger coop, I'll know more about the chickens and which features I want in a coop. Like the poster above said, this will be a good quarantine coop for new additions. So, I'm happy with my purchase from TSC even if it is a smaller coop. We did put fencing under the ground to protect from burrowing predators and put some concrete paving stones around the outside to beef up the overall structure. We also closed up the open door and put the gangplank on the opposite door so we can open and close their coop keeping them more protected. We also put a triangle board up in the roofing area where it was open into the coop part. Some modifications are definitely needed to fully protect the chickens.

 

[3riverschick]

Great ideas Jurassic Bawk,
I wish more people would think of actually putting the house inside the run . it makes things so much easier .
you don't have to worry about weak spots in The Wire where the run is attached to the house.
Best,
Karen