Chicken coop help

All info is appreciated. We are wanting to get a coop and set up a run. Probably 4-6 laying hens. But also want enough room to raise some for meat. what size of coop and what is best flooring? any recommendations on size of coop and run and set up. Please give all advice. Absolutely dumb on this but want to do it right the first time if possible. We are on 51 acres and have plenty of predators - coyotes, bobcats, coons, and possums. Gonna have to have a secure coop. Thank you all in advance.
AND YES - I HAVE ALREADY PURCHASED THE PIG CASTRATER. lol

Dirt is the best floor in my opinion, many of the commercial poultry barns do not have a floor and use "deep litter method" which is something I would look into. Chicken wire is cheap but it is easily chewed through, 1/2 inch hardware cloth will make a better more predator proof run, still advisable to lock them in the coop at night. As far as coop size, that will depend on how many birds you want to raise for meat, commercial meat birds are raised on less than a square foot per bird, you may want to go a bit bigger than that for ease of care though.

Inside the roost concrete is easiest for clean up, also i see a lot of people make these little coops that you can’t even stand up in. When i’m feeding and watering chickens everyday it’s nice to be able to stand up and walk around. Use a good sturdy fence and i’ve got a net on top. It’s to wide open where i’m at to let them free range. They don’t have enough cover to protect themselves from predators so they stay in the run covered by a net. The run is 20x50 divided into two sections so whenever i get new chicks they can be separate until there big enough to run together. I’ll post some pics in the next couple days. You may want to consider more hens, no matter how many eggs we have the kids sell them for $3 a dozen, people beg for them.

We had copied some plans for a 5x6 coop....the wife went to Home Depot with the material list,and it was 900.00 ! So then we found this guy...Coops For A Cause in Center Harbor NH...who makes all kinds of coops. He said that he’s been Bombed with calls for coops and is 6 weeks out. With the egg shortage...he’s a busy man. His coops are all pre wired for lights and an outlet for a hot plate. This fancy 5x8 is 1495.00

Thanks for the info!
How long do you let the hens set on eggs for new chicks? or do you use an incubater?
Dont know if we will go concrete. any other suggestions?
How big a coop if we want a few laying hens and get 1 or 2 to butcher every month or so?
Thanks again!!

Find a old lawn barn shed they work great you can always section it off for fewer birds. If you stick with less birds a guy can build a 4x8 coop just using plywood pieces just put on treated lumber. Old doors and windows will round it out.

I just built this little coop with scrap stuff I had laying around then bought some 4×4 posts and made a 20ft x 8ft run on the outside. The coop is 4×8 and has two roosting poles and 3 laying boxes. I've got 7 hens and a rooster and have room for a few more. I put some wire in floor to help with easier clean up, and a door in the back to get the eggs from the nest. It's works great

more pics please . looks great

more pics please. looks great!

White brooder house built on a 4x8 sheet of plywood treated 2x4s touching the ground. If the lake does not take it this summer.

Know why a chicken coup has two doors......because if it had four doors— it would be a chicken sedan

Looks good. May pm you for more info if thats ok. let me know. Thanks again!!

Anytime no problem

a smart thing to do is to dig a mini trench bout 3-4" deep to put the fence bottom into then pour concrete mix in the trench. The dirt moisture will soak into the mix an a few days. and keeps em from digging under.
Coon and opossum will get thru 2x4" wire.
Run a hot wire bout 3" high all around, too.

In the coop I have cement. No rats or vermi can get in that way!

Outside in the run i rented a trencher burried the wire dbl. Chicken wire and chain link 3 ft down. No predators in 10 years.

You guys are awesome! Please keep the info coming!

Here's my set up. It's 6' X 6" and it has a 3/4" Advantech (resin impregnated OSB) floor that has held up great for the last twenty or so years. We have had as many as 14 chickens in it but our normal flock size is seven or eight. I built it on 6 x 6 pressure treated skids and installed heavy eye-bolts so it could be easily moved from time to time. I tow it with my Kubota tractor.



I built a bump-out in the back for nesting boxes.



The waterer and feeder. In this pic the water fount is sitting on a heater base. It is hung up off the ground (like the feeder) during warm weather.



The nesting boxes.



I installed blinds because some of the girls like a little privacy sometimes.



Fold down glass windows for ventilation in warm weather. The openings are covered in hardware cloth.



The windows in the up position in cold weather.



The ramp to the run which can be lifted and locked at night.



The ramp in the up position. It has been replaced with a new one since this pic was taken.



We use a timer to provide 15-16 hours of light during the short days of fall and winter. It makes a big difference in egg production,.



An old oil drum just so happens to hold exactly 100 pounds of pellets.



There is about 18 feet of roosting bars inside. Happy girls lay lots of eggs!

I don’t ever hatch them, i just buy the chicks. They don’t cost much at all and i see them free quite a bit also.
A rule of thumb has always been 2 sq ft per bird inside the coop, i like to give them a little more room.
Most important factor to raising any livestock is clean water, clean water, more clean water and good food! You’ll get back the best in return in my opinion!

Yep trenched in old wire under the run to stop diggers, the 2X4 horse wire comes in 6 foot heights and is cheaper to use.

I can't post any pic's , but I built one with 6 foot walls and used a old truck camper for the roof. Used treated lumber and treated plywood.

What size are the nesting boxes, and high off the ground for roosting bars, size of bars

My nesting boxes are 12" wide and about 18" tall.

I used 2 x 3's for roosting bars and rounded the corners over. I've got two levels at about 30 inches and five feet. A total of about 18 lineal feet of roosting space.

we have 3 pens of 6 ft chain link with that sharp --cant get under without pain thing goin and never had anything go under in 8 yrs and we keep about 30 layers.

We were having a lot of losses the last two years. The wife and I got tired of fattening up our birds just to provide a meal to local foxes. We reinforced the pen last July; hardware cloth a foot up and a foot out at the bottom of the fence and netting over everything. We think the fox was going over the four-foot fence, couldn't find anyplace he was going under.

The netting should stop that. That stuff is strong, it caught me a dozen times while hanging it! If a fox tries going over the fence now it's going to be a tangled mess.





In addition to the enhanced security measures, my wife has taken to laying in wait, regularly taking up a sniper position in my shed (she's pretty mad about losing those birds).



We haven't had a single bird lost since the new security measures were implemented.

Don't mean to muddy the waters, but for those who don't know (and especially so in Missouri), about 100 years ago, the State of Missouri setup a poultry research farm at Mountain Grove, in which all components of poultry husbandry were researched in detail. Outcome, as far as chicken houses are concerned, were carefully engineered housing in which every minute detail was examined to optimize performance of the birds. Size, layout, materials, ventilation, lighting, etc. To give you some idea of the extent of the engineering, plans developed went so far as to even specify that the windows should not only face south, but a few degrees east of south. I doubt that fewer than 1 person in 1000 who now raises chickens are even aware such specs exist, let alone have followed them. So mistakes get made. The very worst are the small commercial coops being built by skilled trade guys with absolutely no clue as to what makes a good chicken house, so emphasis on them is "cute", which may result in a really nice looking death trap.

Anyway, two basic house designs emerged from all that. One was the Quisenberry Fool Proof house......an 8' x 12 house for 2 doz birds. The other was the Woods Fresh Air house, which comes in different sizes, but the base house was 10' x 16' and good for 40 birds. Both designs have been reduced in size for smaller flocks and as long as you follow the design parameters, they seem to work.

Plans for both designs are out there on the Internet. I built the Woods house. Works well for our climate and not a single loss to a predator in nearly 5 years.

They're chickens for crying out load. They need protection from the rain/snow and predators without being too crowded. A place outside to pick is nice too. Everything after that is more for the owners, don't make it too complicated.

BTW, if I was an old geezer or gezerette thinking of scaling back on his trapping, but would like to still keep his finger in the pie.......if you are in a high predator area, a dozen chickens ought to be good for at least 10 to 15 coon, possums, skunks, a fox or two (or 3 or 4), occasional coyote, occasional bobcat and a few mink if you have them around. Chickens make excellent live bait for all of them.

Great point!

Here in SD about every old farm place had a coop many had brooder houses it’s a great place to find old chicken equipment cheap. I picked up a 15 hole nest box for free the nest inserts were rusted out from old straw still being on them. I went to the local heating shop and made a bunch out of his scrap pile, buying a 10 hole nesting is about $300 new.

My best nesting boxs are sm/ medium totes hung sideways with lid cut out. Screwed to the wall.
Easily removable for cleaning

That seems to be the sentiment of a lot of folks. But it's little things.......like the subtle difference between insulation under a metal roof, vs. an uninsulated metal roof. The latter means that under the right conditions, it will literally rain down on the birds inside, leading to respiratory problems, frostbit combs, etc. In the long haul, it makes a whole lotta difference. Birds that lay, birds that don't. Birds that die for one reason or another.....vs. birds that don't.

Keep in mind, purpose of all that research was to help farmers and farm wives of the time, to get the very best performance from their birds as they could. Chickens were not a hobby......it was all business.

BTW, almost all the old books from that era started out on the first paragraph of the first chapter saying that judging from the housing being used, many folks seem to think that just any old shack or shed is good enough for chickens. So the sentiment is nothing new.

Like 2X4s for the roost is better for their feet, they can cover their feet better then a round pole will allow. The best coops are built with personal ideas and pride.

I had a smaller coop on stilts with an enclosed run for 8 birds. I designed it so I could feed, water, collect eggs and clean the coop without stepping in chicken manure. Outside access to everything. Deep bedding in the coop.

The run was 1/2 inch hardware cloth up to three feet, then chicken wire to 6 feet and over the top. I buried 18 inches of hardware cloth under 4 inches of sod around the perimeter to deter digging predators.

Had red incandescent bulbs on a dimmer switch for heat in the winter. Waterer on heated base and feeder stayed in the run, not the coop. Forced them outside in the winter, helps to keep the coop clean.

I completely changed the bedding in the coop about 3x a year, raked it around every week.

I had roost space in the coop and outside, they could choose where to roost based on weather. I tired to keep the roosts all level to prevent fighting.

When we moved last year, we left the coop at the old house, this thread makes me want to start on the new one.

Well said.

My daughter and her husband raise birds. Turkeys geese ducks peabirds and chickens. Have big meat rabbits too. Sell birds sell rabbits sell eggs. All their birds free range during the day. They get bird feed every other day spring to fall. They lost a lot of birds when they first started free ranging. Now they have two pyrenees dogs. They have been raised with the birds, sleeping with them at night, since they were brought home as 8 week old pups. No fox where they live. Coons, possums, skunks, coyotes, and bobcats chicken hawks and the occasional eagle. No losses to speak of since the dogs grew up.

I would free range mine in the evenings, about an hour before sundown. Sit out in the yard with a 22 and a few beers, play guard dog while they ate bugs in the gardens. When the sun went down, they'd file back into the enclosed run to roost for the night.

Mine run outside all day, eating bugs...and ticks. Go to coop at night along with a few ducks. Sometimes we forget to shut and latch the door. They’re fine. Keep a dog around and predators get scarce, that’s what they’re for. Not for overfeeding and baby talking. We did have a hawk problem last fall. Haven’t seen it for awhile. Had one hen drown in cattle trough. Bird Brain

unfortunately my dog and the neighbor's cats seem to view chickens as a food source, rather than something to be protected. Hence my vigilance when they are out.

Here is my coop, it's over 100 years old. I got it from my neighbor (who is 92 yrs old) and he got it from an old farmer when he was in his 20's. He told me that the farmer said he had got it from a neighboring farm, and that it had been there as long as that farmer could remember.
I had it moved from across the street and had to replace the floor. It has the original 2×8's for the floor, but I put treated plywood over them. I also added the brooder box inside.

nice coop. I'd have to sell a lot of eggs to justify building something like that.

DD that coop has a ton of history to it very cool keeping it real I love it.

Last summers project. Wife wanted something nice that matched the house so it does! The ladies seem to like it though, they can sit inside on the rainy days and watch the day pass by.

That is awesome Ditchdiver!

As stated before, plan bigger than what you think you need. I have my coop on a poured slab, it makes for easy cleaning. I use the deep litter method which allows me to only clean the coop 2x a year. I but 5 bales of pine shavings on the concrete floor, then add organic matter every week or so (hay, pine needles, etc) chickens scratch it up into a fine dust. my coop is 8x12 with an attached 600sqft enclosed run. But I free range my birds from 6am to 8pm. I only use the run for when its really bad weather or there are a lot of predators in the area.

I have several separate coops: one for layers, one for meat birds, one for young birds/breeding. I automate as much as I can to make our lives easier. Feeder holds about 120# of feed, and a 5gal water with horizontal nipples reduces the amount of time need every day in the coop. I suggest you add a "poop board" under you roost. This makes it a lot easier to clean. my meat bird coop is 14x16 with a dirt floor on 1/2. It is a lot harder to keep clean. I don't like keeping meat birds and layers together because they become bullies and "hog" the feeders. I do prefer to force my meat birds to move. I put their water on one side of the coop and feed on the other. I also run them outside in the their run at least once a day.

pic of the layer coop adjacent the meat bird coop.


inside of the coop. Concrete floors, and the area under the window is where the roost is located. the removeable poop board is being framed in.


4 nest boxes. although they only use 2 of them for 40 chickens.


part of the run. Post set in concrete, braced corners with aircraft cable and turn buckles to support the netting over the run. 6' welded 2x4 wire set 1' deep. heavy duty netting over the run to help keep predators out. I use the same stuff we had on the game farm raising 40,000 pheasants for the state.

I really like your setup, Pintail. I would like to build my own coop, just to "make it my own", but the one I have works, has history and is better built than what I could do! Maybe I'll make a separate coop just for our meat birds....

I started with 2-4x4x10's and 2-4x4x8' base and went from there. I have since fenced about a 30x30 in with wire and t post to let them out in during the day so they have more room. I have had 14 at one time. Also i used an old piece of vinyl flooring for inside the coop to make it easier to clean.

Great advice and information. Plus the pics help a bunch. Really appreciate it!

another question folks. Should we start with some grown laying hens or get chicks? and a rooster? We have lots of Amish and Menonites around, so I am sure I can get some established hens. And the Farm stores are full of chicks. Thanks again in advance for your opinions and info.

Chicks are fun, especially if you have young kids. But if you can get started layers you’ll be money ahead. No reason to feed a rooster unless you just like having them around like we do.

Here's my coop, accommodates 6-8 chickens. It has been working well for me and them.

You don't want to raise strictly meat birds with your other hens. They will eat and eat and make a mess you won't believe. You should butcher all your meat birds at the same time. If you keep them too long they will die from a heart attack OR their legs will give out the gain weight so fast. About eight or ten weeks. At six weeks old fifty meat birds will eat fifty lbs of food and ten gallons of water a DAY.

Bought my kid a turkey tonight hes been asking for one. Can you put a turkey in with my chickens?

Been raising em for over 60 years.concrete floor inside coop or don't bother.thats all I got to say about that.

Super Great thread!!!

Rockfarmer we'd raised chickens my whole life but about two years ago I gave all mine away to my uncle, and tgen I decided to get some more this spring so a couple weeks ago I bought 7 laying hens off a friend for $8 a piece, Rhode Island reds and golden comets and one leghorn. Then I decided to get the kids some chicks. I bought 8 Rhode Island red pullets and 4 Amerecaunas and 2 barred rocks. Unless you just want to raise your own it's definitely cheaper to just buy 1 year old hens. By the time I bought the diddles and feeder and waterer and headlamp and stuff to build them a box, I would have saved money buying hens. Lol. But the kids love the babies

Nothing better for kids

Definitely going to be following this thread... my family has ganged up on me and it looks like we'll be getting chickens sometime in the near future, LOL!

I buy hens already laying off a local hatchery for $2.50 a piece. Getting eggs the next day. When they start to peter out, can trade them back in for a $1.00. Don't have to stick all that feed on them, pullets around here sell for higher.

Always thought a guy could buy up the old chicken supplies and sell them to the hipsters at a sweet profit.

I got a roto-tiller attachment for free on Craigslist for my weed eater , gave it to my neighbor for use in his chicken pen (with dirt floor) greatest thing ever for that use as the chickens poop and it turns to cement. He uses it to churn the dirt over so they can scratch. Can't do that with a normal roto-tiller as it is a too tight an area. Great use for it.

Also , I've learned how to sex 'straight run' chicks at most garden supply places to properly sex pullets VS cocks and hens at places like Tractor Supply. You can reject cocks at the 'straight run' price if they let you. Not bad for someone labeled 'city folk' , a good skill worth learning.

Here is our coop, white oak board sawed on our sawmill, still have to build the run right now we just let them out to free range and put them up at night

Beautiful coop, Mike.

Thanks, it’s sure nice to have fresh eggs

I miss that. I will have chickens next year.

Thats a nice one Mike 77

what type of wood/ siding did you use? That looks like a great setup.

Good Job! And just like that your a chicken farmer!! You’ll be pleased when the eggs start rolling in! I haven’t done meat chickens since i was a kid and i still don’t miss the smell of soaking them in the hot water before plucking! You get a nice skillet full of fried chicken though and you’ll forget all about it!!

Our set up. 8x16 coop, run is about 20x30. Room for feed and bedding on 1/3, you won't want that feed and grain in your garage or fur shed, it's a rodent magnet. 9 two year old Hens and 20 one year olds and one busy rooster. Ours are free range during the day, lost one to a hawk and two to sickness the first year after I got old straw from a neighbor that turned out to be full of bugs from barn pigeons. Lesson learned.

Looks very good. Assuming the front faces south, what you have is about 90% aligned with the old Fool Proof house I referenced way back in the thread.

Some notes of interest.........chickens create a lot of humidity and moisture just by their existence. Through their breath and droppings. Too much and they start getting respiratory ailments, plus in sub freezing weather, the moisture leads to frostbite on combs and waddles. Requires ventilation. So closing up a house isn't good...moisture and ammonia from droppings are both bad news. Assuming those windows face south, winter sun will follow the roof line all the way to the back of the house, meaning well lite.....warmer, dryer and UV from the sun helps with bugs and pathogens. Summer sun is directly above......so roof overhangs shade windows to keep things cooler. So good job on number and orientation of the windows, and vents up high (always open). And if openings face south, house was placed on a south facing slope, which is always warmer in winter. And drier. And protected from brutal north winter winds.

Metal next boxes.....aside from being the right size, number is to be about 4 birds per box. Hidden varmints include mites and lice.....and metal is easier to clean up than wood, which has cracks. And you are right about the rodents. Chickens are rodent magnets. Rats being the worst. Easier to prevent than to eradicate.

A buddy and I built the coop based on a photo my wife liked so we might have lucked into some of the features. The big windows face south and I leave them open night and day once the weather warms up. Soffit vents on front and back overhangs and slots near the top on each side. We open the side windows, it is closed in the photo because we had rain last night, get a great crosswind for ventilation. Our coop is pretty exposed on the hill though with one shade tree that helps in the summer. No insulation, no extra light and no heat except for a plug in water heater in the winter. Egg production does drop way off in the winter because of the short days but still get enough for us to use. Overload on eggs right now though!

Just got home from the lumber yard. Will see how this goes. Will try to update with pictures as this progress's.

In the chick - pullet coop Which I got free...on the wood floor I stapled down chicken wire before overlaying with new floor.... vermin wont get in that way.

Hey, Rockfarmer! These are always fun threads to look at. I was going to post on this earlier, and I hoped I could find one of my old posts about coops and copy it here, but I guess it’s been too long and I couldn’t find them. Anyway, our girls have it pretty good and we’ve learned a lot along the way - not always by doing everything right.

Our coop is elevated and has a wood floor. We use the deep litter method with pine shavings and it works beautifully. Our coop is only 4’ x 8’. We built our coop for 6-8 hens and it would be just fine if it was a little bigger and had a higher ceiling. Bigger would be nice because it really helps to be set up so you can divide the coop temporarily when adding newer, younger pullets. We divide ours at those times, but it’s really tight. (If you raise chickens to butcher them all and then start over, this is not an issue. Ours have pet status, so when we get down to only a few, we get new chicks and integrate them.) A higher ceiling would be nice so when I need to do work in the coop for any length of time, it really helps to be able to stand up straight! Our coop is insulated, and more importantly, it has good ventilation – way more important than warmth. Always lean towards fresh, clean air over heat.

We have four nest boxes (more than needed), and they definitely have curtains! I did an experiment with that a long time ago and put curtains on two of the four. Given the choice, the girls would only lay eggs in the nests with curtains. They like the security of feeling that their eggs are hidden. I then put curtains on all four boxes. Their roosts are 2” x 3” boards, but any dimensional lumber with a wider flat side is best for them so they can set their fat bellies on their feet in winter. They don’t have particularly strong feet and are really most comfortable on a flat roost. Bigger natural branches are nice too, but round dowels are tough for them to hold on to and don’t allow them to toast their little feet. (Okay, big feet.)

I have used all kinds of waterers and the only ones I will use now are the Farm Innovations poultry fountains (mentioned on another thread) because they stay warm in winter, they fill from the top, they don’t have a tray and that keeps the water perfectly clean inside down to the last drop, which results in much healthier hens and waaaaaaaay less work for me!

We have an automatic stainless steel door that opens on a timer and closes on a light sensor. The girls have a radio that comes on with their lights on a timer. They enjoy bluegrass, country or classical music. (We don’t allow them to listen to any hard rock or anything inappropriate for them.) We have a few thermostatically controlled outlets. I plug in a Sweeter Heater in one area during the winter in case any of the little beauty queens wants to warm her back. I make sure not to heat the whole coop so they have a choice if they want to sleep under it or not. It is surprising how often they don’t choose the heat. I reverse the function on one of the outlets so I can plug in an exhaust fan to come on in the summer if it gets really warm. Since so many people on here already know this, I will now have to admit that during one or two extremely hot summers, I attached a tiny window air conditioner to one of their windows for the hottest few days. Okay, laugh all you want - our girls were the only hens laying in the area!

The girls free range by day, but they have a 10 foot run with a roof so they can hang out there during rough storms or right before they go inside in the evening – or if we’re gone and we don’t let them out. They run around in the woods by the coop and the house and follow us around. They sit on our laps when they get a chance. When they free range, their eggs get richer and better and the yolks are darker orange. Great stuff. They come up to the house and hang out under the porches, and they show up and look in the screened door when they hear us nearby. In winter, they march through the (shallow) snow to come over to the house. (Zim plows them a path if it gets deep!)

The girls are patriotic, so they have an American flag, and Zim added a little window box so they could have some flowers outside. They appreciate that.

It should be obvious at this point that I have pet hens with names (yeah, I know). One year I did go get a bunch of meat chickens - Jumbo Cornish Crosses – and raised them up and butchered them just to prove to my neighbors that I’m not a complete idiot. I kept them in a separate pen. The girls were not allowed to meet those boys or witness the whole butchering operation. Those boys were delicious.

Anyway, we have been through some hens since 2007. We’ve learned a lot and they stick around much longer now. Between cleaner air and water and some tricks with some great products (food grade diatomaceous earth and Oxine AH), they live longer, healthier lives, make more eggs and smile a lot. Our Buff Orpington will be nine years old in May and she’s in better shape this year than ever. After a winter break, she started laying again on March 1st.

Here are some photos from over the years.














I hope you have fun with your chickens. You'll get a lot of good advice and great ideas on this site!

You spoil them girls they are luck.

A couple of features that i really like about our coop is the outside run is divided so on the years we get new chicks they live in the back section that you can see with the little coop until there big enough to go with the adult birds. Then the first pic inside is an area where we keep tools, food, etc. You can also see where the eggs end up. Last you can see the roost, i’ve got it hinged on the wall so you just pick it up over your head and latch it to the ceiling so i can get under it to clean up. Also the coop is insulated, i’ve got the heat lamp that shines on the water during the day when the coop is open. At night when we shut the coop up we turn the lamp off and it stays above freezing unless it gets really really cold. I don’t like to give them light 24hrs so we turn the lamp off at night.

That divided area is nice, Keystone. That's one of the problems with the size of our coop and integrating new little ones. We do divide the coop, but we just barely pull it off.

Due to our undersized coop, we don't add any little ones unless we're down to 2 or 3 adults. Then we'll get a few chicks. We raise those in our brood pen in the house until they're fully feathered before they make the move outside to the coop.






This shows the coop with two runs when it's divided, so the little ones come and go from the left side of the coop into their own little run, and the big ones go out the right side to roam freely as they please. When they're all back in the coop, it is divided and they can see each other through the divider.







While it was divided, I moved nest boxes to the big girls' section on the right.



For anyone new to integrating young chickens into an existing adult population, that's really key to having them get along. If they see and get used to each other for a while when the older ones can't pick on the little ones, everything goes much more smoothly when you pull out the divider and allow them to mix. As far as they're concerned, they were already roosting in the same coop every night for a while. Squabbles are kept at a minimum. Integration day was hilarious and without incident. The little ones discovered they could free range, but stuck closer to the coop. After a few days, they stuck close to the bigger girls all day.

If we had it to do all over again, we would make the coop a few feet bigger with a removable dividing wall and a higher ceiling so we could easily stand up in there. Besides being easier to manage, more space and fresh air per bird makes healthier birds too. Now that we have this situation working as well as it can with the space we have, we'll stick with it for a while. The day we get down to three hens we'll think about getting chicks the following spring. That used to happen often enough, but the girls have been healthier and healthier over the years as I've learned some valuable lessons, and it's taking a long time to reach that point. We have been hovering at four hens for three years now (with Daisy turning nine this spring) and all four are laying, which is nice to keep Zim and I in eggs!

I could go on about the things we've learned, Rockfarmer. We're truly small potatoes here, but I have some useful tricks that have made a night and day difference in our chickens. For anyone keeping chickens (and numerous other farm animals and pets as well) who is not familiar with Oxine AH (non-activated form - NO citric acid) and food grade diatomaceous earth, those products are both game changers. The other day, I dug through a tote with piles of past chicken "supplies" that used to include all kinds of remedies and antibiotics and things I would use to try to save a chicken with sour crop or a respiratory infection, etc. That used to be common here, but now it's been a long time since I even thought about those things!

Hopefully some of this is helpful. I do know that you'll get a real kick out of the whole experience!

Great information and pictures! Really appreciate it! construction starts tomorrow.

Good luck, Rockfarmer. Keep us up to date on your progress!

Made it for my daughter's birthday. Planter on top.
Probably move it with a 2 goat hitch.

She'll love that.

Way to go

Nice

Keystone, what are the dimentions on your coop....?

Completed with wheels and ramp. Not sure who likes it more my daughter or her husband.

The building is 8x25 and the fence is 25x48 i believe.

Sorry I haven't posted updates. We are almost done with walls, roof is on but needs shingles. Might get a little paint on tomorrow. Still a long way from done. Got a new puppy on Sunday. Poor guy had severe case of the worms. Been getting him healed up - he is much, much better now and severely spoiled since both my daughters showed up. Will try to post some coop pics and puppy pics tomorrow or next day. Again - thank you all for the info. It has been very, very helpful. But I am sure we will screw something up or the dog will eat the chickens! lol

front with oldest daughter and new farm dog -anatolian shepard pup. south side has 2 windows and vent. East side has 1 window. Adding a 10x10x10 run to the little 4x8 on the front. roughed in and a coat of primer. Will see how the next few days go.

Looking good Rockfarmer.

Hi, I'm new here and in the field of poultry. My first broiler chickens arrived not a long time ago, so I tried to find as much info as I coul. Maybe you lready know this but may be not I found out that one of the main things to do is to make a chicken coop as big and free as possibe. As an example I found this coop that will allow to keep from 8 to 10 chickens. It looks amaizing! It doesn't even looks like a coop. Also, it's better to add stability to a feeder to prevent problems or even it's better to use hanging plastic feeders. For example, I foung this buying guide for chicken feeders and wanted to get something like the third one there but people on another forum had told me that it will be very small. So I've decided to buy something plastic like the first one from the guide and later to build my own feeder. As for the food, they will need special chicken food, which is already balanced with all the vitamins and minerals they need. This is what I found out so far. :-D Do you guys agree with it?
And here are some pics of what I have so far and what I'm planning to build

This is a simple pin to build just get treated 2x4 and rip on table saw frame the panels and put them together.

I'll state the obvious, if you have broilers, then you won't need a coop with laying boxes.

Design your coop with ease of cleaning as the top priority. Running water is nice to have also. Eggs will take care of themselves. It only takes a few minutes to gather them, so the labor is in daily cleaning.

@k snow

Oh, thanks! Haven't thought about it.

Broilers are typically 7-9 weeks to butcher, if you feed them the right food. Giving them a lot of area to run in will slow their weight gain, as they can get more exercise.

Studies in the 50s and 60s figured out that 1.25 square feet per bird was the best for meat development, for broilers.

Broilers are a completely different game than egg birds. Broilers will eat themselves to death if you freely offer food.

In the past I let my chickens free range and had some bad luck. They would go to the neighbors. One had a little dog that killed one and damaged another.

I will get some pictures to show my setup now.

Here's the setup I used for 24 broilers. 4 foot by 8 foot.

This my setup with my chickens.
My coop was built by the Amish and I modified it with nest boxes and roosts


These are my birds, Bielefelders. Too many roosters. Soon to be dinner packages.


The smaller fenced area was for the chicks when up to 7-8 weeks old. Then an extended fence area for a couple of weeks. Then wide open.


I use a solar fence charging system. The fence is a 4 ft. high styrene fence zip locked to steel stakes & bottom stakes. 300 feet around. No overhead cover.


They pretty much stay close to the coop area. Sometimes wandering. Not like the last ones I had.

Didn't know about that. Thanks for info!

Ours is 13x8. The best part about this coop is they get plenty of fresh air and exercise without having to lock them in at night to protect them. This coop size will accommodate 10 chickens. I have the plans we used for this if interested PM me.