Unfinished Coop

[Wyandotte103]

I made a decision. I am putting cheap tile on the floor. 29 cents at menards!!

 

[Joe.G]

I wouldn't put the tile on the floor, Not that it would not work and be easy to clean it just takes away from that farm coop feel to me and looks out of place on a old coop.

 

[Egghead_Jr]

Pine shavings for the floor is all you need. This litter mixes well with poop and can be raked in until it all needs to be shoveled out and replaced or shovel out the piles of poo under the roosts and rake in a little new pine chips each time until all needs replacing.

I don't recommend insulation unless your coop has a metal roof and will be in direct sunlight. Then you'd insulate only the roof to stop the solar heating in summer. It's the heat that hurts chickens not the cold. Also you need good ventilation so in reality with enough ventilation what purpose is insulation other than keeping the roof heat in summer out?

For the large gaps just use baton. You know, board and baton siding. You use the cheap baton to cover the gaps of planks. If there is not good ventilation then cut them in along the top of coop and cover the vent holes with hard wire cloth. There are plenty threads on here about ventilation. Use the search at top of page and read up on how important it really is. Also check out the cold weather threads and read up on how cold hearty chickens really are. It's the heat and improper ventilation that are the problems to chicken health.

 

[Wyandotte103]

Okay, I will look into that. I was thinking tile would be easy to clean and I would put pine shavings on top of it. Would that work?

 

[Joe.G]

You have a old coop try and keep it that way if you just start throwing tile and stuff down to me it just makes it look cheap. For very little money you can make that one nice, That floor looks to be in fine shape. If you have a lumber yard or better yet a saw mill close, you could get battens pretty cheap, I would go around the whole coop and put them at every seem and that would make it look nice and also fill in any gaps you may have, I would hand the food and the water in the coop, The water for sure so it just doesn't sit on the wood floor and rot it, I used I think it was a 6 or 8 inch log that was about a ft in dia which I just cut out of a log and put the water container on that, I also got two small feeders ( Metal tray type ) and I screwed them to the wall for grit and oyster shells.

You can use a hole saw or what ever and make vents if you don't have any and put hardware cloth ( it's small 14/x 1/4 metal wire and it's cheap ) over the holes, I would also put the wire over the window just in case some thing breaks though and also so you can take the window out all the way for the summers.

Here is a link to one of my coops, the siding style I did is Board and batten.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/...-this-coop-as-i-went-what-do-u-think-any-tips

Do you have any more pic's of the outside and everything, Try and get ones not as zoomed in so we can get the bigger picture.

 

[Wyandotte103]

Omg that coop is amazing!!!! I will look into that and as long as its not too expensive I will try it. It would be cool to keep it old fashioned looking!!

 

[Joe.G]

Mine is wood and I clean it once a year, Look at all of the pic's, You will see I used rubber boot trays to collect all there waste which most of it is made while roosting, The boot trays I clean about 1 time a week but the reat is early in the spring.