Why are all the coops on stilts?

[greyartist]

I was just wondering. My hen house is made from a prefabe storage shed and it has a floor and sits on cap blocks. Now I'm needing to build a multi-section house for a brooder room, breeding pen, and a turkey coop. I'm thinking dog kennel style, long sectioned house with runs in front. So I've been looking around at the different coops on here but all seem to be up on poles. Why is this necessary? Do I need to rethink my idea?

 

[AtholCoop]

Quote:
For me two reasons.

1. Snow. With the coop a few feet off the ground it's one more thing I don't have to dig out every day.
2. Cleaning, it's nice to be able to put my wheelbarrow right up under the coop and just pull all the litter straight out.

 

[Southernbelle]

Too close to the ground and it's a great hiding place for rats, mice, snakes and other undesirable critters.

Put it up a bit higher and you don't have to bend over so far to feed and water and it provides a nice, shady area for the chickens to hang out in hot weather.

 

[greyartist]

will turkeys go up into a raised house? these will be my first turkeys, 4 black spanish

 

[RobbingPeter]

I am building my first coop - so I don't have an official answer - but I can tell you why I chose to put mine on stilts.

1) It raises everything to a comfortable height for cleaning and working in the coop. There will not be so much bending over to get at the stuff at the ground and the nest boxes are at waist height - no bending to get eggs.

2) The space underneath the coop can be counted as run space and that makes the space I have to devote to the run smaller.

3) It makes it easier to predator and pest proof. It will be much more difficult for large 4 legged predators to get into the coop because they won't have very good leverage to try and pry things open. With the smaller critters - I don't think it matters much one way or another.

4) It allowed me to put a coop on very uneven ground. The space I have to devote to the coop is on a bit of a slope. By putting it up on stilts I was able to easily level the coop without excessive engineering. Otherwise I would have had to sacrifice some of the little flat space I have on my property.

I hope that this is of some help.

 

[ericsplls]

I think alot of it is space. By utilizing the area under the coop as a run it gives you more run area without taking up anymore of your yard. This is important to those marketing the coops. Their design is geared toward birds being kept in the city or suburbs where yard space is an issue. I personally don't know if turkeys will go up into a coop. Most of the people I've known to raise them didn't even have a house for them. The just had a covered area with a roost. Then again in south GA where we live you can get by with two walls making a corner and a top.

 

[patman75]

It creates a sheltered area for chickens, added space for the run, and if you build if on unlevel ground it is easier to make the floor level.

 

[MoSo]

Material cost as well. Maximizing the use of 4x8 sheets of plywood. Money I don't spend on plywood and framing I can spend on a good-quality dual pane window. Also, if you think about it, the only point of making a shed 6-8' tall is so a human can stand upright - the birds don't need all of that vertical space (not that they wouldn't probably enjoy it). Likewise, a coop on stilts I can build in the garage and then haul out to the waiting site.

 

[Chieftain]

Economy of space too. I built my coop 2 feet over the run, so the entire footprint of the run and coop is only 50 square feet...

 

[cappy]

For me the biggest reason to raise the coop was to give protection to the chickens from heat and rain. They can get out of the summer sun and be cooler, the area stays dry in the rainy season where the run gets flooded. They have made their dust bowls under the coop because it is always dry. Like everyone has said, it also adds to the run space without taking up more yard space.

Ken