Chicken Coop design questions

[Knight9]

Eddie,

I assume there will be some concern about processing food anywhere close to chicken fecal matter etc. With the small garage between the two areas it may be enough of a buffer, but I'm not sure.

I do like your "multi-purpose" building approach though. I'm considering chickens as well and am considering a coop/garden shed combo as well with a greenhouse lean-to down the whole south side. Less building :thumbsup:

 

[Grumpy Old Man]

We have "more than a few " hens, and once you start you will wonder why you didn't start long ago . Each chicken you will find has it's own personality from extremely smart to the dumbest animal you will ever find ,We tend to stay with high production layers 280-320 eggs a year and have had very good luck with black and red sex link birds ,they are cold tolerant lay almost daily and grow to 8-10 pounds when it's time to butcher and as far as a chicken is concerned pretty smart .As far as a coop is concerned a concrete floor works great and we use 1/2 plywood laid over the coops floor (poop boards ) and it makes it easy to clean when needed also the larger your nite roost is the harder it is for the chickens to stay warm in the winter unless you plan on heating their night roost . Automatic waters are nice but prone to freezing up we use 5 gallon buckets with a lid and 3-4 chicken nipples in the bottom of each bucket you can buy these on ebay pretty cheap less than a $1 each and they work great .open waterers or feeders will quickly be filled with poop and you'll be cleaning them daily ,Fill the 5 gallon bucket with water and hang high enough up for them to reach it and they will teach themselves how it works the water stays clean and lasts a few days even in the summer .Chickens have to have a clean and readily available source of water to produce good eggs or they will get worms and thats another battle just put food grade Diamataceous earth in their feed and you'll have no worms ,the chicken nipples are red colored plastic and the chickens will peck at them because of the red color works great ,you can hang a regular pellet feeder high enough for them to get to the pellet layer feed so they don't tip it over or waste feed on the floor , back yard chickens will give you tons of advice , with new chicks you will be pacing next to the pen waiting for those first eggs , find a local hatchery near you and buy 16 -20 week old birds and when you do get them keep them penned for the first month or so before letting them range around the yard and they will run to the coop(home ) every evening with no problems , After 2 years old they tend to lay less often and it's time to replace them , if your considering buying laying hens the younger birds have yellow feet and beaks the older birds (the ones usually for sale ) will have white feet and beaks try to keep them all the same age or they will kill the young ones .Go to you tube and type in factory farm eggs and you will never buy another egg from a store again . whatever your coop plans are make sure you have outside roosts and most will do their business outside as most chickens poop when roosting , one other hint we have learned is fly control you can buy hanging fly traps from tractor supply they come with a small vial of fly bait but we have found placing a few pieces of raw bacon and some water in the jar will keep your coop fly free ! 1 last thing where ever you place you coop/run the chikens will take it down to bare earth fast and you will never have grass there again until you replace the topsoil from nitrogen burn ,chicken poop very high in nitrogen and great for the garden after seasoning

 

[tcreeley]

We have a 5' fenced yard for the chickens, off of their coop. We let them out every day and they come back in when they want to for water + feed, otherwise they scrounge. They eat everything- household leftovers, greens, slugs, bugs, etc.. They return to their coop at dusk. If we are home, we will let them out and they roam the garden, lawn, etc.. They return on their own.

They can smell- I'd think twice before you build a coop close by. Cement is hard on their feet I would think. They will pick at styrofoam, insulation, silver foam- everything needs a hard covering- They like to roost at night and use their pecking order to decide who gets the highest roosts. They jump from roost to roost- like going up stairs.
Goodluck- info on Murray Hatchery-- Murray McMurray Hatchery

We started with Barred Rocks (cold resistant).

 

[Tororider]

Grumpy old man, I agree with you about diatomaceous earth. The only reason I suggested the automatic waterer, is because it's my belief that where Eddie lives he won't have a problem with freezing. Eddie will know that better than we will, but if that's the case and automatic waterer would be a good decision.

 

[Grumpy Old Man]

Grumpy old man, I agree with you about diatomaceous earth. The only reason I suggested the automatic waterer, is because it's my belief that where Eddie lives he won't have a problem with freezing. Eddie will know that better than we will, but if that's the case and automatic waterer would be a good decision.

Your right , I was just posting what works for us. I don't have freeze proof water line in that part of yard and we are selling this house when the new house is ready on the property ,So no reason to add one now , I will have to move the house chickens to the property with the rest of them soon we just wanted to keep enough here for our daily egg supply .I plan on scrapping the yard and replacing it with topsoil and sod for the new owners as this house is in a subdivision (The reason we're leaving ) and I doubt the new owners will be raising chickens or a large garden ! You should have seen the neighbors faces when I built the home coop and told them i was adding chickens to the yard/garden .Now they ask almost daily for eggs . i thought they were going to have a cow when I brought the backhoe home and had it in the driveway to replace a few hoses ! Too many projects and not enough space , At the new property I can't even see a neighbors house and that's the way we like it !

 

[EddieWalker]

You sure you want a chicken coop connected to an outdoor kitchen?

MarkV

After bringing this up with Karen, she has changed her mind about having the chicken coop as part of the garden shed. She was thinking that she would keep things clean and there shouldn't be a problem, but then realized that even the slightest possibility of risk was more then she was willing to deal with, so no chicken coop next to the garden shed.

We are now thinking of a separate, stand alone chicken coop off to the corner of the garden. Our reasoning against doing this was because of predators. We have a lot of raccoons and snakes, so I'm just going to have to make the fence around the coop strong enough to keep them all out.

I know I'm over thinking this, but for me, that's a big part of what makes it fun for me.

Thanks for all your suggestions!!!!

Eddie

 

[Grumpy Old Man]

The small coop I built 4x12 we use for the house chickens works great for 10 birds ,easy to clean chickens have taken to it well and easy enough to move if need be ,outside access to laying boxes And nothing works over a compost pile better than a flock of chickens , You will find yourself naming them and you will catch yourself sitting and watching them for hours but nothing is better than that first egg ! I added an extra covered run to give them more scratching space and you can see in the winter we give them 1 heat lamp on the cold nights they did well last winter

also when you collect your eggs if they are clean they can be stored in a basket on your kitchen counter if they are dirty and you wash them you will be washing off the natural protective layer and they will have to be refrigerated you will be amazed at the barter power of a dozen home grown brown eggs !

 

[EddieWalker]

When you say 4x12, are you talking about the coop or the fenced in area? or both? The reason I ask is we are also trying to decide on how much area to fence in for the birds. We will have about an acre for the garden, but that will include fruit trees, a green house, flower beds and a koi pond. Ideally, I'm thinking it would be nice if the birds had that entire area to wonder around during the day and ate bugs. Some people have said this works great, others said that they will peck our veggies and cause problems. Either way, we will want a fenced in area with a roof on it of some kind to keep predators out. The bigger the area, the greater the expense and the less land available for other uses.

Thanks,
Eddie

 

[Grumpy Old Man]

the coop is 4ft x 12 ft with a raised 4x4 hen house ,I used a plank with cross treads for them to walk up also you will want to build a small door I made a sliding door attached to a string and run thru eyelets to the outside so I could open or close it when I wanted, Chickens need good ventilation in the hen house because of the amonia from droppings can cause respiratory problems in the winter I just staple plastic over the vents to keep them out of drafts , It sounds like alot but once your set up it only takes one trip to the coop each day to feed.water and collect your eggs ,Well worth the time ! One other thing is you don't need a nest for each bird they generally will use just one or two and the rest sit empty .the chickens will eat your garden if you let them , I throw all the garden scraps table scraps peaches/watermelon rinds and just about anything else in there and it's gone in seconds , they like meat scraps we just don't feed them chicken scraps it just doesn't seem right .

 

[NorTracNY]

I've heard 4sq ft indoor for each bird and 10sq ft outdoors as a general rule of thumb. The more crowded, the more smell and more often you're going to have to clean it out. Also, if too crowded you'll have more fighting between the birds. I would suggest any late day/evening that you're outside, to let the chickens roam. The birds will go in on their own as it gets dark.