which would you do?

[minister man]

You live in country that has winter, you want to build 5 pens, 4X4, on a tight budget Do you:


1) Build a building 4 feet deep and 20 feet long, with doors opening out the outside? 5 feet high in front, and 4 in back, since you don't have to walk in.


2) Build a building 8 feet deep with the pens along the front and a hallway down the back?

3) 5 individual 4x4 buildings on stilts?



So which do you think you would do?

 

[Egghead_Jr]

For me it would depend on the site they would be located. If I wanted a large building then I'd do the hall down the center giving a dry warm access to each pen for me, then you'd have a partitioned off runs on each side. Ventilation would be easy too, using soffit venting and large gable exit vents that one could put a fan in one end (opposite windward blowing out) to create a wind tunnel in summer. You do have to have wood walls up a few feet between stalls as Roosters will/can mate through wire walls.

On the other hand if I had orchard type land I'd want little coops dotted about it and that way probably wouldn't even use runs. Each breed would likely keep separated with enough land and forage. Of course this would be more time consuming to manage and may need to pen each breed anyway to keep gene pool separate.

 

[minister man]

thanks for the thoughts! The pens are for trios of silkies, they won't be going out side, but I want to have room for five trios, plus 5 spare males. That is why I wanted 5 pens. No orchard setting around here.

 

[LindaKatheryn]

Personally, I would go with Option 2. I saw a coop like that and it is now on my "gotta have one" list.

 

[duckinnut]

Personally on a budget, I would build a long row house style because it will lower the cost and time in. Interior walls could just be a thin laminate versus plywood and siding and you could set up the runs similar to a commercial dog kennel that would reduce cost by making one side of a run is a side of the next versus having 5 3-sided runs. My 5 cents cuz 2cts just don't cut it in this economy.

 

[minister man]

Thanks, I was thinking that another option might be to build the pens 3x6 instead so that I could reach the back of them and I could put one pen on top of the other. If i built a building that was 6 X 10 and put 2 pens in each end, one on top of the other, that would give me 4 and a 3 foot hall way between them. Then I have to build an other pen someplace else.