Using part of an old barn

[puddleglumWI]

Hello all,

I have been back on the family farm for about 9 months, and am once again thinking about getting chickens. There is an old dairy barn here, that hasn't been used in decades, but water and electricity still run to it. I am tempted to build a nice big run outside onto a corner of the barn, and repurpose enough square footage inside to act as a spacious coop.

There are lots of openings here and there in the barn that I would need to close up, but I am quite sure I can make it so racoons possums and cats can't get in. I can't keep weasels and rats from getting in though, so I would be looking at building some walls inside and hardware cloth all around to make sure the chickens are safe. A coop inside the barn.

I would be out of the wind while feeding, watering, collecting eggs, etc. and wouldn't be carrying buckets of water since there is a water spigot in the barn. I also could have fantastic ventilation of the coop with huge tracts of ventilation, as the barn itself is a wind barrier. It also is big enough and has a little draftiness so that humidity shouldn't be a problem.

Anyone using part of a barn or other big building as a coop?

Any suggestions?

Thanks,
-pg

 

[NatJ]

There are lots of openings here and there in the barn that I would need to close up, but I am quite sure I can make it so racoons possums and cats can't get in. I can't keep weasels and rats from getting in though, so I would be looking at building some walls inside and hardware cloth all around to make sure the chickens are safe. A coop inside the barn.

You can probably build the coop with just hardware cloth and some framing, since it is inside the barn. The barn provides weather protection, the hardware cloth would contain the chickens and provide protection from predators.

Here's an article about someone's coop that is part of a shed. After you scroll a long ways down, you can see that the coop is divided from the rest of the shed by a wall of hardware cloth, supported by a bit of wood framing. Something similar might work inside your barn.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/aarts-coop-page.65912/
(That one has some chicken wire as well, dividing the coop into two sections. Chicken wire is fine for containing chickens or separating chickens from each other, but not good at keeping out small things like weasels or rats, or strong predators like racoons.)

 

[wrathsfarm]

All my coops are in my pole barn. 3 coops and a brooder room. Concrete floor and steel siding and roof so it's fairly secure against everything here except small intruders (mice, rats, chipmunks). We have no minks or weasels around us and no rats yet so I'm just catching mice and moles inside.
This was supposed to be just temporary til I got their coops built but because life and it's been over a year now. Someday I'll have my barn back....

 

[puddleglumWI]

You can probably build the coop with just hardware cloth and some framing, since it is inside the barn. The barn provides weather protection, the hardware cloth would contain the chickens and provide protection from predators.

I was thinking about exactly this, but also am wondering, if a predator gets into the barn and is climbing and rattling the wire, trying to get in, will that upset the birds? Would they feel more secure if there are walls? Or will they be fine as long as their roost is high enough to make them feel secure?

 

[NatJ]

I was thinking about exactly this, but also am wondering, if a predator gets into the barn and is climbing and rattling the wire, trying to get in, will that upset the birds? Would they feel more secure if there are walls? Or will they be fine as long as their roost is high enough to make them feel secure?

They will be upset, but solid walls won't make much difference. The chickens will be upset either way.

 

[puddleglumWI]

They will be upset, but solid walls won't make much difference. The chickens will be upset either way.

So I should be sure to make the barn as secure as possible and, if I get an unexplained drop in egg laying, look for signs of infiltration and get out the appropriate traps.

 

[NatJ]

So I should be sure to make the barn as secure as possible and, if I get an unexplained drop in egg laying, look for signs of infiltration and get out the appropriate traps.

Yes, that makes sense.

I've had chickens in outdoor pens, with walls of just wire mesh, in situations where foxes came sniffing around regularly, and sometimes tried to dig underneath. It didn't seem to make much difference: the chickens acted stressed if the fox was right there, but were fine the rest of the time, and egg laying did not seem to be affected.

For chickens that have a coop and run, they will often flap around in the run rather than running into the coop if they see a predator.
Here is a recent example:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/fox-can’t-get-into-coop-but-keeps-returning.1616737/

In some hot climates, people make "open air coops"-- basically a big cage of wire mesh, with a roof and a bit of shelter at one end, with roosts and nestboxes in the sheltered end. Having a bunch of wire walls doesn't seem to stress their chickens. And if given the choice, many chickens will sleep in an outside run instead of inside a coop. Again, solid walls do not seem to be their choice.

So I don't think solid walls make much difference to whether chickens feel safe. They either stay on their roost (at night) or try to run/fly as far as they can, or hide in some small place (nestbox, corner, under a bush, something like that), regardless of whether their main living space (coop or run) has solid walls or wire-mesh walls.

 

[puddleglumWI]

This is a drawing of the corner I am thinking of repurposing. The walls are all field stone and cinder block. So I would be looking at cutting an opening for an auto-chicken-door into the wooden door in the corner and having the run off the corner of the building.

My initial thought for a design would be something like this:

Red is "walls" I would build (mostly hardware cloth), and purple is a roosting bar, with a poop board underneath.

 

[aart]

Red is "walls" I would build (mostly hardware cloth), and purple is a roosting bar, with a poop board underneath.

Is all the floor concrete?

 

[puddleglumWI]

Yes, old concrete, rough texture, some holes and cracks in it.