UrbanMike's No Idea What I'm Doing Coop & Run

[LadyAchee]

Love it! So well thought out!

 

[Tytsofie]

Howdy. Just documenting my coop build. This is a work in progress. I'm making this up as I go. And I have no idea what I'm doing. Also, somehow I don't know how to use my speed square as well as I think I do....

My wife and I purchased six Buff Orpington chicks for our family of 5. They've already brought us so much joy. And it's been fun to watch them grow. They just hit 3 weeks old this Friday.

The Coop I'm building is 52 inches by 60 inches. It was supposed to be 4 by 5 feet, but I measured wrong, soo....... whoops. I'm reusing some old scrap lumber and a bunch of new. I had dozens of old posts and an old desk that became the base of the coop. They should have about 21.62ft² in the coop. So about 3 sq ft per chicken. Hopefully, these big ladies have enough room.

The chicken run for our coop is planned to be 8 feet wide by 16 feet long. If my math is correct, that should give us 128 ft² of room for our six hens.

Did I mention I have no idea what I'm doing?

Hopefully, the ladies will have plenty of room. We also built a small chicken tractor to let them out and drag them around the yard. Well I mean drag the tractor around. Not my chickens.

22 years of poultry life and i’d say that coop looks amazing. Predators are your biggest enemy. I would dig a 6 inch trench around their run and insert hardware cloth 3 feet high, as this will help keep out the digging predators (raccoons, coyotes, possums, dogs, martens, etc). Chicken wire essentially only keeps chickens in, and a hungry anything will rip through it in a blink. A motion activated light scares them away also, and once they’ve figured out that this coop is tough to get into at night, they’ll quit trying.

 

[LJ33]

Looks fabulous, my young hens also spend time in the windows, pushing each other off the ledge. I have a 2X4 across the coop for a roost, but they made their own I guess.

 

[oldhen2345]

Yeah..... I think that might need to be redone. Luckily I have lots of logs and wood.

These ladies are afraid of the dark. Like clockwork, they start crying at sunset and they all make their way to the top of the coop. To sit against the windows, which are barely ledges.



Sigh. It's quite comical as they each bump each other off. But yeah, they aren't roosting where I wanted them.

UPDATES:

Today we started working on the chicken run. Made a lot of progress. I thought I should probably have enclosed the roof first, but whatever. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

There will be a roof, an access door and more trim.

In the morning I'm going to add some more grip pieces to the little chicken ladder. But it was 7pm when I stopped and didn't want to get the table saw out and drive my neighbors nuts by ripping strips of wood in the evening. Tomorrow morning's project.

I need to figure out what we can put down in the coop for flooring. This used to be a raised planter that I tore out and leveled. So right now it's just all dirt. I thought I could seed it with grass, but that takes WAAAY to long to germinate.

If anyone has recommendations.....

Grass would never grow- the chickens would scratch and nibble til there was nothing but dirt. Depends on what you want to spend on it. Hay might work well and be less expensive than pine chips given the area. The coop looks great- I have a 2x4 laying flat (not up on the edge) and they love it. The run is shaping up. I put paver caps all around my run - it has hardwire from top to bottom and across the roof, which also has wood over it. Anything starting to dig gives up before they get past the paver. I also have cinder blocks with mint and rosemary in them - the hens at the dill and basil.