CatsandCrops
Songster
We think we've finished the coop but thought we would ask on here if there's anything else you may add or change? Our property is majority woods so we have a ton of predators - hawks, foxes, racoons, groundhogs, random cats, it's a Disney film in our backyard.
Full article here --- https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/wait-thats-not-a-small-guest-house.75696/
We built it mostly out of free pallet wood - it measures 8 feet x 4 feet, not including the bump out for the nesting boxes
We used leftover materials from our garage build and house remodel - it's wrapped with house wrap for insulation and has roofing paper under the metal roof. Under the coop/nesting boxes and all vents has hardware cloth attached.
We added three windows to the coop - one in the triangle tops of both sides and one in the coop door for light. We also edged the siding with trim to help keep out bugs and what not.
We buried hardware cloth 18 inches deep all around the coop/run - its about 110 square feet total. We used concrete to stabilize all the posts and then added the next layer of hardware cloth all around. We used wood on the side and attached it to a pallet on the outside of the hardware cloth to sandwich together the seams (we also had to have some sort of fencing around our run per city codes and this works for that). We also added beams for the roof and did the same process of sandwiching seams to close it off from hawks or other climbing creatures.
I framed out a simple door and the footer from the door is wrapped with a layer of hardware cloth that is buried 18 inches, so something would have to go through 2 layers of cloth to break in that way. The door has access cloth on the edges to help add protection over the door frame. It latches with a gate latch and we added a simple sliding bar lock since this photo was taken.
Inside the coop we have multiple roosting bars and both a feeder and waterer from PVC pipe (the nipples weren't installed in the photo but are now vertical nipples). The waterer has a 2 gallon water jug attached to the top and the feeders currently hold about 2-3 weeks worth of crumbles. We have 9 Barred Rocks - 8 girls and a boy. We know the chicken math is off on the coop size - we had 6 on order while we started to build our coop but we were given 9 total when we went to pick up because our local farmer hatched a few more barred rocks than planned and no one else had ordered them. We're hoping the bump out nests and the extra space in the run helps in the long run.
They spend the majority of their day roaming around the run. We both work 12 or 24 hour shifts so they go out around 6a-7a and put themselves to sleep at 7:30-8p. We close the coop door every night and the run is always locked. There's an outside solar light above the window shown in the last picture - it gives them some ambient light in the coop but not a ton, it's more for us to be able to see the run on our Ring camera at night if needed.
We're having issues getting them to use the nipples. They have an open water dish in the run, but not in the coop - we've bumped all their beaks to it, added jelly to them, attempted a laser pointer - all the tricks, yet they aren't drinking. Any thoughts? Any changes you'd make?
Full article here --- https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/wait-thats-not-a-small-guest-house.75696/
We built it mostly out of free pallet wood - it measures 8 feet x 4 feet, not including the bump out for the nesting boxes
We used leftover materials from our garage build and house remodel - it's wrapped with house wrap for insulation and has roofing paper under the metal roof. Under the coop/nesting boxes and all vents has hardware cloth attached.
We added three windows to the coop - one in the triangle tops of both sides and one in the coop door for light. We also edged the siding with trim to help keep out bugs and what not.
We buried hardware cloth 18 inches deep all around the coop/run - its about 110 square feet total. We used concrete to stabilize all the posts and then added the next layer of hardware cloth all around. We used wood on the side and attached it to a pallet on the outside of the hardware cloth to sandwich together the seams (we also had to have some sort of fencing around our run per city codes and this works for that). We also added beams for the roof and did the same process of sandwiching seams to close it off from hawks or other climbing creatures.
I framed out a simple door and the footer from the door is wrapped with a layer of hardware cloth that is buried 18 inches, so something would have to go through 2 layers of cloth to break in that way. The door has access cloth on the edges to help add protection over the door frame. It latches with a gate latch and we added a simple sliding bar lock since this photo was taken.
Inside the coop we have multiple roosting bars and both a feeder and waterer from PVC pipe (the nipples weren't installed in the photo but are now vertical nipples). The waterer has a 2 gallon water jug attached to the top and the feeders currently hold about 2-3 weeks worth of crumbles. We have 9 Barred Rocks - 8 girls and a boy. We know the chicken math is off on the coop size - we had 6 on order while we started to build our coop but we were given 9 total when we went to pick up because our local farmer hatched a few more barred rocks than planned and no one else had ordered them. We're hoping the bump out nests and the extra space in the run helps in the long run.
They spend the majority of their day roaming around the run. We both work 12 or 24 hour shifts so they go out around 6a-7a and put themselves to sleep at 7:30-8p. We close the coop door every night and the run is always locked. There's an outside solar light above the window shown in the last picture - it gives them some ambient light in the coop but not a ton, it's more for us to be able to see the run on our Ring camera at night if needed.
We're having issues getting them to use the nipples. They have an open water dish in the run, but not in the coop - we've bumped all their beaks to it, added jelly to them, attempted a laser pointer - all the tricks, yet they aren't drinking. Any thoughts? Any changes you'd make?
