I welcome your suggestions and recommendations......
I'm starting on my first coop ....... six chicks ........... the coop will be 8' x 7' (part of it will be for tools). I've spent the last three weeks reading all the posts, and I think I've looked at every single picture of chicken coops on this board! And I have taken lots of good ideas from all of them. I am fortunate to have a DH who is extremely handy - I show him a picture or explain what I want, and he builds it. No plans, no drawings ........ he made the built in cabinets in the living room and mantle from a combination of several pictures I showed him. I could never do that, especially without plans, but I guess he does it all in his head. So, I'm already planning the window boxes and double doors and chicken decor........ but he won't even discuss those yet - he says "Build the box first!".
So, we started on the base of the coop yesterday. My plan was to use the deep litter method, and put linoleum over the base. I am going to place the coop over another area (not shown in the picture) next to the garage, that is covered with gravel, similar to the right edge off the patio. Our climate here is high desert - 5,200 ft above sea level, and very dry. The coop will get sun in the morning, but shaded by the house in the afternoon. It gets pretty warm in the summer - 90's - but very low humidity. High winds are the biggest problem, so I'm reading up on ventilation / insulation.
Should I continue with the linoleum / shavings / sand / on top of the linoleum method? I have lots of sand here - I'm in the desert after all, but I don't know if that's the way to do it. Should I do it differently? And the last question.......... should I put hardware cloth under the floor? Do I need to worry about rodents chewing through the floor?
I'm starting on my first coop ....... six chicks ........... the coop will be 8' x 7' (part of it will be for tools). I've spent the last three weeks reading all the posts, and I think I've looked at every single picture of chicken coops on this board! And I have taken lots of good ideas from all of them. I am fortunate to have a DH who is extremely handy - I show him a picture or explain what I want, and he builds it. No plans, no drawings ........ he made the built in cabinets in the living room and mantle from a combination of several pictures I showed him. I could never do that, especially without plans, but I guess he does it all in his head. So, I'm already planning the window boxes and double doors and chicken decor........ but he won't even discuss those yet - he says "Build the box first!".
So, we started on the base of the coop yesterday. My plan was to use the deep litter method, and put linoleum over the base. I am going to place the coop over another area (not shown in the picture) next to the garage, that is covered with gravel, similar to the right edge off the patio. Our climate here is high desert - 5,200 ft above sea level, and very dry. The coop will get sun in the morning, but shaded by the house in the afternoon. It gets pretty warm in the summer - 90's - but very low humidity. High winds are the biggest problem, so I'm reading up on ventilation / insulation.
Should I continue with the linoleum / shavings / sand / on top of the linoleum method? I have lots of sand here - I'm in the desert after all, but I don't know if that's the way to do it. Should I do it differently? And the last question.......... should I put hardware cloth under the floor? Do I need to worry about rodents chewing through the floor?
