Creating my Slightly Different Chicken Coop

[EddieWalker]

Two years ago my wife was given some chickens and I built her a 10x20 chicken coop. We're now getting about 16 eggs a day from them. Last year she was given guineas and needed a coop to keep them in short term, so I built her a 12x12 coop as part of our horse barn. After releasing the guineas one at a time so they would stick around, she bought a couple dozen broilers and raised them there before we butchered them.

Last month she decided she needed to have silkies and several other breeds of chickens. Even more important, she wants roosters to breed them. We've learned that roosters are pure evil and that they have to be confined and separated from other roosters, and only have short periods of time with the hens. If left with them too long, they tear up the hens with their spurs.

The plan evolved from multiple chicken tractors to combining them all into one circular chicken coop with 8 pens laid out similar to the spokes of a wheel.

Below are two sketches I drew up on graph paper to get my dimensions figured out. There will be a 36 inch exterior door to get into the enclosed portion of the coop. There will be a separate door to each pen, laying boxes, waters with heaters for winter and feed. They will have a small door to go out to the open area that will be fully enclosed with wire field net and a door to get into that area from the outside. It will require over 40 posts and probably take me the rest of the year to finish if I'm lucky.

 

[EddieWalker]

Last week, I measured it all out, marked where the concrete pad would go, and flagged the position of the posts. Then I set the forms and dug out the footings. The ground is very dry and hard, so I used my SDS Max rotary hammer with clay digging shovel bit in it to break through it. I set rebar and then went to lowes and bought sixty 80 pound sacks of readi mix concrete.

The next morning it rained, so I started mixing concrete at 1 pm. Probably the worse time of the day to do this with temps in the high 90's and the humidity very high right after the rain. I was literally raining sweat!!! It took 50 sacks.

 

[EddieWalker]

This weekend I started trenching for my utilities. I want water and power to the coop. Power is coming from the house and is a fairly straight shot. Water is being tapped into from a line I have going across my garden. I dug it up with the SDS Max rotary hammer using that shovel bit to find it, then carefully used my backhoe to open up the trench ten feet in either direction. It's 3/4 pvc and to get a T onto it, I need to lift the pipe up enough to slide into the fitting.

While I'm at it, I decided to run five more water spickets to areas around the garden. One of them will be a 16 foot treated post that I will turn into a streetlight with a LED dusk to dawn light.

 

[EddieWalker]

Here is the little silkie that is causing me so much work and money!!!! and my crazy wife in her baby chick room

 

[coralhead]

Here is the little silkie that is causing me so much work and money!!!! and my crazy wife in her baby chick room

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Amen brother, We have chickens as well as Llamas and Alpacas.....

 

[mddorange]

We have about 60 chickens and the granddaughter got 12 from 4H to raise.

 

[Luke'sScreenName]

Lol! A well know philosopher already came up with this design. The paopticon prison.

Panopticon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[EddieWalker]

Very cool. I never heard of that before, but that's the idea I had to monitor and access each pen from one central location. Sometimes I wish I had an education to already know these things.

 

[jimmyj]

Looks very good. As usual your projects are spectacular Eddie. We used to keep silkies too, but it's too cold here for them in the winter. They are pretty neat looking.

 

[ustmd]

Looks great and I learned something new. I did not know/never thought about getting a "clay digging shovel bit" for my SDS rotary hammer.

It is is off to Lowes/HD.

 

[EddieWalker]

I bought it on Amazon. They have a very limited selection of SDS bits at my local stores. United Rental sells a lot more, but they are expensive.

 

[MossRoad]

Very cool. I never heard of that before, but that's the idea I had to monitor and access each pen from one central location. Sometimes I wish I had an education to already know these things.

Then you might enjoy reading up on rotary jails. There's one down in Montgomery County, Indiana. One of only two left in the country... read it when you have a few minutes. Pretty neat. Dont' know how the chickens would feel about it, though. :laughing:

Montgomery County Jail and Sheriff's Residence - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Rotary jail - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Hammy75]

Very cool project you have going here. Looking forward to seeing the updates as you put it together.

 

[Wagtail]

Then you might enjoy reading up on rotary jails. There's one down in Montgomery County, Indiana. One of only two left in the country... read it when you have a few minutes. Pretty neat. Dont' know how the chickens would feel about it, though. :laughing:

Montgomery County Jail and Sheriff's Residence - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Rotary jail - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

We've got a variation of the rotary prison down here at Port Arthur, Tasmania. I've done the tour of it and it's fascinating what all of the different 'penitentiary' methods were employed over time.

 

[EddieWalker]

My wife took this of my yesterday. We're having a bit of a cool spell with temps only in the mid 90's. The humidity is still very high, but I was able to work all day with the lower temps. Last weekend I gave up at 2pm when temps got over 100 and the real feel heat index hit 118. I'm a zombie after that!!!

Foundation work is all done, and now I'm working on framing up the roof. What you see framed up now is the walls between each of the 8 stalls. We're expecting severe thunder storms this week, so I'm going to wait for that to pass before putting OSB up on the walls. Then I'll finish framing the walls and roof.

 

[sld]

How are those 2x6's attached on the 30 degree angles?

 

[aczlan]

How are those 2x6's attached on the 30 degree angles?

Looks like they are "toenailed" on the short sides and held up by the horizontal boards.

Aaron Z

 

[Steppenwolfe]

That is so cool...The Taj Mahal of chicken coops.

 

[EddieWalker]

How are those 2x6's attached on the 30 degree angles?

The angles starting from the ones going straight up, then 22.5 degrees, then 10 degrees. As of right now, there is a single 3 inch screw holding the two together at 22.5 degrees. When the rains end, I will be cutting and gluing and screwing a full sheet of OSB to the side of each wall section. There are seven of them. Once that is done, I'll start framing up in between each wall section with a more skeletal frame. I'm debating between metal fasteners to hold it together, or gusseting it with OSB on either side.

The treated 4x4 posts are 3 feet in the ground and the overhang is 16 inches. That overhang will be where the nesting boxes are. Then the rest will of the room will have a perch for them to sleep, and for us to easily catch them when they are asleep.

 

[weldingisfun]

Eddie, have you ever heard of the word "conventional"? :laughing: Just kidding, keep it up, we all enjoy your "out of the box" construction projects.