Underestimated the chicken addiction!!!

[Hep44]

We planned on having about 6-8 chickens.....but we're up to 21 we need to expand on our coop! Does anyone have experience with just having 2 separate coops? Will they separate themselves out if one coop get too crowded? Or will they all try to cram into one?

Or, does anyone have thoughts on how we can add on to our current one? (We free range them, they do not stay in the run all day)

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Honestly when I have seperate coops, they have seperate runs too. Up to 6 and some quarantine cages now

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Easiest way to expand that would be to "mirror" it. Remove large flat panel not shown in the photo. If it has no holes in it, repurpose it as floor. Hang new rafters off your ridge pole, new decking for the expanded roof, structure sides to fit. Depending on how many boxes are in your nest, you may not need to expand that at all.

My bigger question is how you access that house to clean it seasonally? Or is there a door on the side we can't see?

 

[Hep44]

Easiest way to expand that would be to "mirror" it. Remove large flat panel not shown in the photo. If it has no holes in it, repurpose it as floor. Hang new rafters off your ridge pole, new decking for the expanded roof, structure sides to fit. Depending on how many boxes are in your nest, you may not need to expand that at all.

My bigger question is how you access that house to clean it seasonally? Or is there a door on the side we can't see?

There's a door on the side you cant see that runs almost the length of it. I didn't have a picture from that angle

 

[21hens-incharge]

Straight up for 21 birds I would turn your entire structure including the current run into a walk in coop.

Even that may be to small.
What are the current dimensions of everything?
Where in the world are you located? Different climates have different housing needs.

I also recommend a large very secure run for those times when ranging them is not an option due to weather or predators in the area.

PS: chicken wire will only keep chickens in. It does little to nothing to keep predators out.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Well, the good news is, that door represents a huge opening already.

Unhang the door. Expand in that direction. Install door on new wall. Use the framing around the old door location (if its wide enough) to add roosts running from old wall to new wall in a "leaning ladder shelf" type pattern.

That's a pretty steep roof angle, I don't see where you are located. Are you concerned about snow loads, or ??? If aesthetics are a concern, that roof angle is your biggest limiting factor - otherwise you are forced to expand the width, creating a longer structure with the same wedge shape - which may eventually become an issue in high winds, depending on the building's orientation, and how well you have sunk those posts you are using as legs.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Or as 21 hens said, cover the whole structure, call it a coop, and hang a new covered run off of it in the direction where the run door is now oriented. Use hardware cloth, not chicken wire, to keep the predators out.

 

[Hep44]

Ok I should give you some more details here lol....this is still very much a work in progress....unfortunately we started this right at the beginning of the pandemic and getting materials has been a huuuuge issue. We had to special order hardware cloth and waited like 6 weeks for it, we just finally got it and need to switch it out. That run is temporary, we plan on expanding it. We live in mid Michigan out in the country (all fields around us) so we can get quite a bit of snow. There are trees all around our property though, so it doesn't get very windy in the backyard.

Hope this helps, and thanks for the input!

 

[Hep44]

Also, I should add that 9 of our birds are only a couple weeks old and are still in the garage. The rest are not quite full grown yet. So we aren't currently trying to cram 21 birds in this coop lol

 

[SegiDream]

I kind of like the idea of enclosing the run area for the extended coop. You could recycle the doors and hardware from the current coop and *maybe* a solid concrete floor. Ours free range but we have a small run area with t-posts, easy to place in the ground and tie fencing on. That might be useful as a temporary run until the coop/run area transformation is finished...

Please post some picture updates! I'd love to see what you decide to do