I'm thinking about using pallets on the floor them putting either osb or maybe even just some really thick lanolim down, has anyone done this? I would put it in a pole style coop, not build on top of it. I just thought something to have them up off the ground a bit would be nice. Anythoughts? Crystal
Quote:If you put pallets on the ground under flooring they will not last long -- I would give them between 1 and 3 yrs depending on pallet type. Also they will be a vermin farm. I'd suggest real floor joists. They're no harder to do in a pole-built structure than in anything else -- arguably easier, because you can level them quite easily. Good luck, have fun, Pat
Someone else did this recently.. I can't recall who, but the whole floor of the coop was pallets covered with plywood.. And it was HUGE. I'll see if I can dig up the post and edit to link it. EDIT: Coop made OF pallets. https://www.backyardchickens.com/coops/pallet-coop.html Extention made of pallets. https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=120702&p=1 Pallet building modified into a coop. https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=174484 Pallet town. https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=158804&p=1 And... I can not find it.. I WISH I could, but I can't seem to locate it with this persnikety search engine. It was rather befuddling.. It was something like 5-8 pallets wide and 10-15 deep... Oh well.. I'm sure someone may have better luck finding it than I did.
When DH and my son built our duck coops they used pallets for the floors. They didnt use plywood on top they filled in the openings with other pierces of pallet. There are very narrow slits betweens the boards. It makes it very easy to clean as we hose out the duck houses daily. The water goes through the floor boards. They have been in use for 3 years now and we have not had a rat or mouse problem at all. They are currently building a growout coop for our RIR's and they are using pallets for the walls as well.
I'm using pallets for the floor base in my current coop build. I've got them up on 2x6 pressure treated boards for skids and then I put OSB on top of the pallets and vinyl on top of that. Sturdy floor. And I think there's plenty of clearance underneath to keep critters from being a problem. I plan on posting it on it's own thread when finished but here's a preview if you need to see something now:
Those three pallets are sitting on 2"x6"x12' PT skids. I could have done 10 footers but the pallets would have hung over the edge a little. In hind sight, I would have not centered them on the 12 footers, I would have them go up to the edge on one end and built a little storage cubby on top of the protruding skids on the other end. Oh, well. Anywho, I attached them to the skids with angle brackets which are visible in the photo. I also did some extra bracing with some 2x4 lengths, which you can also see, under the pallets in between the skids. The bottom corners of the skids are cut off in case I ever need to move/drag the coop somewhere else someday (and it's a pretty good bet that will be the case). Hope that helps! Feel free to ask more questions if you have them. Katie
