The Coop

The chickens have been living in their coop for ages now and I never posted about it. And now I am going to, because it was a lot of work!

 

We used bricks to create a raised foundation.

 

On top of the bricks we used treated wood, but the ladies can't get to it because it has 1/2 inch hardware cloth draped over it. The hardware cloth is dug into the ground a foot deep, so no little buggers will dig under it.

 

This is the only photo I have from building the side walls. I used the same technique the shed builders used and built each wall flat on the ground, then stapled the hardware cloth on. Then we lifted each section and secured it to the foundation...

 

...like so!

 

This was at an in-between stage. You can see the pop door is cut out but we were going out of town so we just attached the panelling to get us through the weekend.

 

And this is the completed coop, as it looks now.

 

There is a nest box out the back that can be accessed by this back door

 

Here's the door opened. We painted the inside and then laid down some vinyl flooring to make it easy to clean. You can lift out the vinyl sections and hose them off if you want. This nest box is filled with hay and the hen house floor is covered in newspaper.

 

Looking into the hen house from the door. I designed the whole thing to open way up and be as easy as possible to clean. The ladies sleep on that roost every night.

 

I took this photo from inside the run. At some point I may add a door to that ventilation window so if it's very cold we can close it up at night.

 

We filled the run with pine shavings. Bertie and Ernie like to dig in it and it helps keep the smell down. In fact, the coop doesn't smell at all. When we build the new compost bins behind the sheds we will be able to shovel this bedding right into it when it's time to change it out.

 

Happy girls! Their feeder hangs from below the hen house.

 

So far this coop is performing great. We did have a mouse get in once, through one of the 1/2 inch spaces in the hardware cloth. After it filled up on chicken feed, though, its belly was too big to squeeze back out and Tomu found it stuck halfway through. That poor thing didn't make it. As far as we know that's the only invasion that has been attempted against the chicken fortress.