Am loving all the cute coops and beautiful birds on this thread!! So many different designs and sizes...love it!
Now comes the hillbilly US coop I built for $200 and recently tweaked with scraps of lumber, some of which were 50 yrs old or more. Mine is a cattle panel hoop coop that started out pretty open air but this summer I built in the ends and added an extra hoop, then added a dog house on the back of it as well for my faithful chicken dog, Jake.
When I first built it, it looked like this and was big enough to house 20 chickens comfortably, had two nest boxes and two long roosts, one pop door.
Nest boxes were outside access and made from plastic totes, scrap tongue in groove lumber....
After last winter's bitter cold subzero temps and finding my coop too dark, too dank and not big enough for my liking when birds were confined to it in deep snows, I decided to do a big coop tweak this summer and change things. I added another hoop on the back, placed the next boxes in the front, roosts way in the back, added a clear tarp for winter and will replace with a shadier tarp for summer, I LOVE the changes. I left more ventilation open during the cold temps this year but still find my coop warm, dry and sunny, which was the desired result in the designs that I built in. Also added Jake an attached, well insulated dog house with a stoop on it that covers the winter pop door entrance so they have dry footing coming in and out and so does he.
The clear tarp made for a sunny coop...wish I had thought of that sooner!
The new roosts are easily detachable and I can reach any bird on any roost by standing in the middle, which I love. The roosting area has three large windows that can be opened up in summer for cross breezes and the tarp flaps lift on the sides still to allow airflow throughout the rest of the coop as well.
The front has outside access doors to the nests, drop down windows over those to let in more air, and...I love this part...feed sack rain flaps to keep the rain from blowing into the side crack of the access doors.
I left intentional cracks at all levels in the coop for extra passive air flow and I'm liking how that turned out this winter.
I have wooden feed troughs I built out of scrap lumber in the classic "V" shape of traditional hog troughs, as I feed a wet feed ration of fermented layer mash. In the warm months the chooks drink out of a communal water tub along with the dog but in winter he has his own heated dog bucket and they have a heated dog bowl raised up out of the litter...currently on a step stool but I'm going to build a drop down/stow away water platform with a roost they can get up on to drink, so as to keep the open water away from the deep litter they like to plow through.
Here's a pic of the coop last week before I cleared the snow off the sides....
Water bowl temporarily up on mother's step stool....
I don't have a run, as these birds free range over 3 acres of meadow and adjacent woods. We have 18 acres here, mostly wooded. Their pop door is open 24/7, so they can come and go as they like and life is good for them here....they eat mostly foraged foods in the spring/summer/fall with only a little feed supplement.
The chicken dog...keeps them safe. He only looks like he's not on duty....really. He's just pretending to sleep....
I guess you could say that's my coop and run setup in a nutshell. I've been raising chickens almost 40 yrs in various places and coop styles, most flocks were free range.
I'm loving reading this forum and learning how you guys do it across the big water.
