My Chicken Coop Build (The Fluffy Butt Hut)

[npalen]

Does this ever bring back memories of growing up on the farm back in the 1950's! Had to feed and water the chickens every day, which was bad enough, but cleaning out the chicken house, ugh! Seems like Dad always reserved that for a hot muggy smelly summer morning after a rain that kept us out of the fieldwork.

I still have dreams to this day, seventy years later, of forgetting to feed the chickens, close the chicken house at night etc.

 

[Bearsixty7]

Completed Fluffy Butt Hut.

Chickens are very happy. I do need to find a better ridge cap. The only one I could find was made out of aluminum foil I think. It looks bad.

It's not perfect and I'm sure there are better ways to do it. But, I'm happy with how it turned out for the most part.

View attachment 747327

So now that it's been a couple years, how satisfied with it are you? Any changes you would make if starting today?
We bought a small cheap (relatively) years ago but now the wife has 10 more chicks we have to make room for and none of the prebuilt today seem worth the money or even half of their price, so going to build our own.

 

[LittleBittyBigJohn]

It was perfect for the size flock we had. Since then we have added birds and it's a bit small. We have not had problems with snakes on this one, I assume it's because the floor is very elevated.

Overall we have been very happy with it. No rot, still as solid as the day I built it. The automatic door is amazing, I will never be without one. If it was just a rectangle and not old barn shaped you could fit another full length roosting board so double the birds could roost at night on the same footprint. But then it would look totally different. I guess you could widen the high portion and have the same shape but then your footprint would be wider. I never did change the ridge cap. It seems fine now, guess I was a little hyper critical.

 

[Bearsixty7]

It was perfect for the size flock we had. Since then we have added birds and it's a bit small. We have not had problems with snakes on this one, I assume it's because the floor is very elevated.

Overall we have been very happy with it. No rot, still as solid as the day I built it. The automatic door is amazing, I will never be without one. If it was just a rectangle and not old barn shaped you could fit another full length roosting board so double the birds could roost at night on the same footprint. But then it would look totally different. I guess you could widen the high portion and have the same shape but then your footprint would be wider. I never did change the ridge cap. It seems fine now, guess I was a little hyper critical.

We have this one we bought about 5 years ago on sale for 150 or so. Wife and son wanted to have some chickens and so it was cheap and easy (My son actually assembled it) to start with and see how long their "interest" held (My son was done with them in a few months, no surprise!).
It only took a couple weeks to decide we needed an automatic door so I added one of those on the house part. We leave the run open and they "free range " on the back of our fenced in acre.
It still works for the 3 hens we have. The roof over the "run" rotted last year and a neighbor had discarded some barn tin so I got it for free and redid that portion of the roof.
But the wife wanted more chicks and got 10 free from the elementary school that a class hatched out so we need a place for them.

 

[LittleBittyBigJohn]

One similar to that is what I based the shape and style of mine on. Just scaled WAY up.