Your Opinion Please! PICS of coop

[4theloveofhens]

Hello, STILL in the process of designing my coop since I cannot build it until the end of the month. SO, I have been obsessing over designing coops and trying to find the one that will work!

What I need is

Relatively small (I have 4 hens). I am renting my house so I don't know if I"ll have the coop after a couple of years if I move for grad school

Cheap (Yes, I'm checking resource, craigslist, restore, freecycle, etc. I'm not too worried about this part...)
Safe obviously
Easy to manage (I'll have busy days in the morning before class so I can't be dinging around!)


SO below are 2 different designs. Don't worry about the run part, I already know what I'm doing for that. But I'm struggling with having a storage area (for feed, shavings bag, etc) or not. I think it would be so convenient as my duplex is really small and I don't have a lot of room for that. However, it'll cost more and take more time. Also, one design is 4x4, 5 foot to 6 foot incline for the roof. i was planning on enclosing the bottom of this for an under the coop part of run for chicken. 2 feet here for head room.

The other is 5x3 foot, 6 foot to 6.5 foot incline for roof. I tried to make a little space underneath the coop incase I want to enclose it? What do you think?? I think they have about 14 inches of head room below. The yellow bars are the roost and will have a hanging droppings board beneath. They have plenty of head room and room to walk under roost. They water will be hanging in that bucket, and the feed will be in PVC piping, (The white pipe) just for a visual. I'll be playing around with the windows, so that's not really the issue. I will either be using cupboards for the doors to coop or just use the left over plywood.

I will be painting and priming everything, and I also have linoleum for the floors for both.

Can't decide. IDEAS? Tips? Opinions? I'm trying to think what would be easiest for cleaning, reaching for food, poop board, etc....

THANKS!!

 

[Dorte]

I think both would be good coops, but you know that

Here are my thoughts:

Nest boxes
Your first design seems to have none, is that right?
Your second has only one which should be fine for 4 chickens. I am just wondering if it would be a problem if one hen goes broody and occupies it all the time. If you are getting breeds that tends to go broody a lot, that may be a problem.

Convenience
I like the lower one with the two doors just because it can be quite far to reach in 4 feet. The top one would definitely work, but I think two doors is a good idea. Perhaps I am just a little "access crazy" since the coop I ended up buying is almost impossible to get to from any side! Both yours are orders of magnitude better than what I have. In the lower one you also don't have to reach over the water when you remove the poop boards.

Storage
If you want to have storage underneath the coop (which I think is the best thing to do, especially if you don't have a garage or shed) make sure you think about the sizes of what you need in there, shavings and feed are bulky. Sorry for stating the obvious, but I know I was toying with the same idea, but in my mind I didn't quite realize how much space a bag of shavings take up. I would make to different doors to that area, one for shavings and one for food so you don't have to take everything out to reach the shavings.

At the end I think the main difference between a 3x5 or a 4x4 is the spot you have for it, both will be fine.

 

[JanetSmithery]

I'm a grad student, and I'm something of an anomaly: I haven't moved from my current place for three years. Almost all my colleagues move every summer. They decide they don't like their apartments, their housemates, or their neighbors. They want something cheaper, more expensive, closer to campus, farther from campus, whatever. And don't forget the lucky students who get awesome scholarships and get to go live in another city or country for a semester or a year.

The point is that grad students tend to move a lot, both locally and not. Even if you don't think you will...you probably will. Therefore, I'd strongly recommend that you investigate panel construction: try to make every side of your coop it's own individual panel that just screw or bolt together to make a coop. Similarly, try to find a way to dismantle your roof/floor with just a few screws. That way, if you need to move frequently, you can just unscrew the panels and lay them flat for transport. It's a big space saver. Also, you won't have to worry about how you'll get one big coop through one little door to your backyard or what have you.

 

[Puma]

Here is one we built.

 

[4theloveofhens]

Quote:
Janet

I think that is an excellent point. You are very right to make something that if I had to, I could take apart. I am using all screws and will really keep in the mind the panel concept. Thanks so much for bringing this to my attention!

 

[4theloveofhens]

Quote:
Thanks for your post! I forgot to put the image up where the nest box is outside of the 4x4, so yes, it does have one. But I'm leaning more towards the 5x3

Only question is, is there enough room underneath the coop for them? I don't need food/etc down there, just so they have some shade? Their run will be covered with corrugated metal sheets so maybe it's not worth it to enclose under the coop? What do you think?

 

[havi]

Here is the one I plan on using. Im going to build a couple of them for my different breeds. Here is the BYC page I really like that used this plan. And here is a thread about the plan. I know a couple of people used the plan, just made it a little bigger.

 

[Dorte]

As far as I have read 18" is a good height if you want the space to be used. Less will probably also be usable, but I am not sure how low you can go.

Edited to remove nonsense

 

[NevadaRon]

Mine is raised 18" and it is also enclosed/part of the run. The chickens hang out under there particularly in the middle of the day when there is no other shade available.