New Chicken Coop - Part 1

I spent last night drawing up the plans for our new coop and figuring out the material list.  I went back and forth with buying a shed kit, but the to get a kit close to the size I wanted was several hundred dollars more than building it from scratch.


What we've decided on is a 10'x6' coop, the inside would have 7'x6' (42 sq ft) of space for the chickens.  The other 3x6 space would be for storing food.  The idea is to be able to get eggs and feed the chickens while being out of the weather, while storing everything with the chickens.  The chicken area will have a small loft area above it for storing heat lamps, water heaters, and other supplied.  We're going to build the egg boxes so that they stick out of the chicken area, likewise with the feeders.  This way we can gather eggs and feed the chickens without having to walk through chicken manure (a plus for my wife).


Below is a visual of the coop plans.  I made this in about 10 minutes with Sweet Home 3D, http://www.sweethome3d.com/.

The middle wall in the image above will be welded wire with a door made of welded wire on a wood frame.  The egg boxes will come into the entry area, as well as the new feeders.  The new feeders will be made out of PVC pipe, about 3 feet long with a 180 bend at the bottom.  I saw a friend of mine in Seattle had these type of feeders that he built and they work great.


So, here is the material list to build the coop, broken out by where it is used:


Floor:
2x6x10' - 6
2x6x12' - 1 (cut in half to make 2 six footers)
7/16 OSB - 2 sheets


Long Walls:
2x4x10' - 4
2x4x12' - 9 (cut in half to make 18 six footers)
T1-11 Siding - 5 Sheets


Short Walls:
2x4x12 - 8 (cut in half to make 16 six footers)
T1-11 Siding - 4 Sheets


Roof:
2x6x10' - 1
2x6x8' - 6 (cut in half to make 12 four footers)
7/16 OSB - 3 Sheets
2 bundles of shingles
36' of drip edge


Trim:
1x3x6' - 10 (for the corners of the coop and sides of door)
1x3x8' - 3 (for the windows, top of door, and chicken door)


Most of the materials are now at the homestead.  We're going to try to get this built and the chickens living in it over the next 2-3 weeks so that we can get pigs in the barn, where we are currently housing the chickens. 


It's going to be a busy couple of weeks, stay tuned for updates.

Moving The Homestead

We are officially in our new home.  Technically we've been here since Thanksgiving, but with the holidays and everything that comes with that time of year, it didn't feel like we moved in until now.  Looking out at our pastures and the unfenced in parts of our property, we definitely have some work to do.  We want to change the fencing around so that the paddocks are bigger and fence in more of the property.  There is about 2 acres of grass/hayfield that we want to fence in and just let the cows eat it.

But back to moving.  Everything was pretty easy, then it came time to move the chickens.  Thinking about how are we going to get our chickens from the old homestead to the new one, an hour away, I spotted an old metal dog carrier that we had sitting in the wood shed. 

I waited until dark so that the chickens were calm and in their coop.  They looked a little cramped in there, but in hindsight it was probably perfect since there was really no room for them to move around and get injured during the drive.

We decided not to bring the old chicken coop, since I wanted to build a new/bigger one anyway.  Our barn had a section that was fenced off with gates, so we put up some chicken wire and put the chickens in there until a new coop was built.  I let them out to tour the pasture and eat bugs, but they seem pretty happy in the barn, with plenty of light.

Chickens in Barn

Our new chicken coop is going to be approximately 8x8, like a shed, with 1/2 of it for the chickens and the other half for storage.  I'll start construction this week, so look for a new series of posts detailing the construction of the new coop.