What do you think of your coop years later?

[IdyllwildAcres]

fire up the hoe.

Hopefully that means backhoe...

 

[BigBlueHen53]

Looking good in there, did you ever get a door?

JT

Not a new door, no. But my handyman did put new bracing for me on the inside. Am including pic of outside. You can see it was never built right. The X brace on the exterior was only ornamental. Seems to be made out of plywood. I guess they thought their plasticized paint would protect it from the elements. Which it does, on the face of it. Problem is the raw edges at the top are completely open to the elements and you can imagine the swelling, separation and sag. What my handyman has done will hold it together for a while. He'll be back to paint it. He also had to trim it a bit to fit, but it's WAY better than it was. At least it closes now!

 

[Happy hen lover]

I had my hubby cover my run this year with barn metal that we covered with white roof coating and I LOVE it. It has saved them in hot summer sun and when it did rain( feels like years ago right now!) They hate snow so that will be great this winter too. He also added more branch perches that get used daily.
When chicken math hit and I got more chicks I had to give up my divided cool with dusty storage and I might be sorry someday on that one. We added onto coop and this time there is an access outside of fenced in run which is great.

 

[Happy hen lover]

I had my hubby cover my run this year with barn metal that we covered with white roof coating and I LOVE it. It has saved them in hot summer sun and when it did rain( feels like years ago right now!) They hate snow so that will be great this winter too. He also added more branch perches that get used daily.
When chicken math hit and I got more chicks I had to give up my divided cool with dusty storage and I might be sorry someday on that one. We added onto coop and this time there is an access outside of fenced in run which is great.

 

[Matejka]

I’m finding that on the 3rd summer now, I’m so glad we went bigger and I so many tweaks along the way. This allows for the occasional redesign of the run & coop for them to have new “digs” to explore.

This fall I expect to be fabricating a type of screened in factor for the patio.

Getting tired of hosing off the patio’s collection of chickens poo!

So..... screening in porch as a new coop/run?

 

[SandyRiverChick]

I LOVE all of the coop pictures in this thread! The poop boards and layouts are SO GOOD. Would love to hear from JT as to whether there is a Coop Tres and Cuatro yet ?? Thanks to advice from 3killerBs I made a page called "from this to this to this" to explain how my coop which was similar to Coop Uno is now 112sq. ft. I "might," now be satisfied with my Coop

 

[DickMidnight]

our coop is 4x8 and the secure attached run is 8x16.

i don’t mind the coop size at all, but i wish i spent the extra money to excavate for a larger run, maybe 10x20 or so. our yard slopes front to back pretty heavily, which is nice when it comes to keeping water out of the run, but definitely drove up construction costs.

i made up for that by fencing in a 50x50 pen attached to the run that they get to enjoy during the day when we’re home.

as far as the coop itself, i wish we put at least one more window on the yard side of the coop.

i originally wanted two larger windows situated symmetrically on that wall, but our builder told us that chickens don’t like roosting in front of windows. so we ended up with one kind of oddly sized, oddly shaped window on the largest wall of the coop.

i’m not so sure how truthful that is, but at the time we went along with it.

on the whole, though, our coop is really functional and we haven’t had any issues or complaints in the year and a half we’ve had it.

the girls out in their pen

three new chicks we added to the flock in the pen

my son taking care of the ladies

exterior of the coop. that wall just bothers me aesthetically. i wish it had two windows.

our original 12 all tucked in

you can see the nest boxes there on the left. we access them from inside the run, which is a feature i really like especially when it’s raining out.

 

[TillyPeeps]

Have only had one coop and run.
Pretty happy with it all, except wish run had a solid roof and that coop was a bit bigger.

Same here. Waiting for DH to add roof to my run. I have 16 X 11 roofed area in my run for 11 chickens, but still feel it's too small for winter. I want to double that size.

 

[DickMidnight]

i should also add that we’re pretty hands-off chicken keepers as compared to most here.

we use a feeder that holds 60lbs of food and a water bucket that lasts over a week in the summer.

it’s not uncommon for us to go 2-3 days without going out to check on the girls.

a fully secure run where we can leave the pop door open 24/7 suits our needs very well.

 

[3KillerBs]

it’s not uncommon for us to go 2-3 days without going out to check on the girls.

How do you manage the eggs in this management style? Do you use roll-away nests?

Between my hot climate and my broody-prone flock I'd have a mess doing this.