What could you not live without in your coop?

[BrattishTaz]

Isolation cages!

It seems like I always have a chicken (or two) recovering from some kind of injury in my house. I am planning to add 6 cages to my coop which will house injured, broody, or naughty birds for short periods of time.

 

[Wise Woman]

Great suggestions everyone! Thanks so much. I am thinking that a built in brooder would work for isolation as well. We currently put sick chickens in the house with us, but that isn't always ideal. I will be able to remove my poop hammock from the open doors and all the vintage windows have screens already with them! We will just need to scrub them up and then add the hardwire cloth to the back of the screening!

I am on the fence about the auto pop door. I will probably be letting the one on the coop open as their food and water will be in the run. I will have one on the covered run that goes out to the big run and I am considering putting an automatic one on there. The covered run will be predator proof and since the coop won't be as big as I would like it to be, I want them to have access to the run at all times which will give them triple the space. I will be adding doors to the part of the run under the coop so I can close it off if need be, otherwise it will be open. They will have the 8x6 coop with one 6 x 2 brooder/isolation area that will be open unless someone is sick or we have chicks. The run will be 6 x 16 and hold their food, water, snack station and extra roosts. There will be 4 roosts in the coops and I am considering putting in a removable sleeping bench as well since I have a few who like to snuggle up in the nest boxes instead of perching. We have a couple chickens that like to sleep on our goats feeder and refuse to come into the coop at night so the extra outside roosts are for them. The big run is 24 ft by 32 ft. so between everything, they should have plenty of room and everyone will have space to roost and eat and drink and play. I will probably put in two waters and two feeders. The snack station will contain their corn, fruits, veggies, boss, oyster shell and forage cakes.

My husband keeps telling me to be sure I get this right cause he isn't building another one, so if I forget something or design it wrong, I am going to have to live with it for a long time. He is annoyed he has to build this coop, but it is his own fault because the last two he built are very difficult for me to clean and to even get out and care for the chickens. He never considers that I am not as strong as he is and I cannot tote a full chicken waterer out to where he put the chickens. So this is my chance to get anything and everything I want or need in a coop so I can care for the chickens myself. I will be having someone come out and run electricity to it as well so I can plug in the heater for the water, have a light if I need one or a heat bulb and an outside light. I don't fancy dragging hot water out there every morning in the winter and I am tired of having to use a flash light just to lock them up at night.

The nest boxes will be accessible in the covered run as will their feed. I do not plan to spend anymore winters traipsing through pouring rain or 3 ft high snow to care for my chickens. I'm not going to install a fan because it is rare that we get temperatures over 85 degrees and it generally isn't very humid unless a monsoonal flow is passing through. I will have doors or windows on all sides and double doors on the north and south sides. Our breezes usually blow from the north, so they will have nice little breeze in the summer months when all the doors are open.

Thanks again for all your tips. I was going to insulate it, but I don't think I really need to. We rarely get into the single digits during winter and never below 0. Generally the twenties. I think as long as it is draft free with good ventilation, we will be good.

 

[LaurelRidgeDreams]

Two things I would not want to be without- the poop board under the roost. And the burap covering the hardware cloth on the run. The burlap keeps heavy wind,rain,and snow out of the run this past winter. It is also doing a great job of filtering the afternoon sun.

 

[Thomas423]

Sounds like your coop will have all the bells and whistles. Lucky chickens.
One thing that I find very useful is an outside dimmer switch for the overhead light. It's in a weatherproof box.
I use it for 2 reasons:
1. In the winter months we keep the light on until about 9pm. When it's time for the light to go off we start the dimming process.
2. If I need to go in there after "lights off", I just turn it on enough to see, but not enough that the girls get down off their roosts.

I built a brooder box inside the smaller portion of coop #1. Above the brooder box is an enclosed area where the heat light can hang and the boxes for the electricial outlets are. I didn't want any chickens to be able to get to the light or outlets. To be honest we have not used it since the first batch of babies.
We built a 2nd coop that has 3 brooder boxes above the 2 larger pens last year. The brooder boxes work great until it gets too hot for the older girls.
So.... this year hubby built me a seperate outside brooder box that is dividable into 4 sections.
He swears that it is the last coop. I just laugh because he says that every time. Hehehe. Next I need a "grow out" coop.