Living at 8oooft altitude we knew we had to build a better than average coop. Our fence has done a great job of keeping out predators, but we needed it strong, just in case. Also, because our winters can be long and cold we needed to protect our chickens from that, too. And while we're at it, maybe make something that was convenient for us.
Good thing Lumberjack is an engineer for his day job.
We built the chicken run, inside the fenced-in garden. Because gates are weak spots, we put the gate inside the garden. Hopefully that gives us double protection. The chicken run is covered with wire fencing to protect from hawks and other aerial predators. A big concern up here.
We did have a bear try to get into our chicken run once. He gave up and went on to demolish our garbage shed, instead. So, I guess it's working?
When Lumberjack designed the coop we had some needs we wanted addressed. They needed to be warm. Not only to keep them alive, but hopefully warm enough to keep them laying during winter. We wanted food and water inside so when the snow is two feet deep they don't have to come out. We wanted easy access to clean, gather eggs, and check on the chickens. Speaking of cleaning...we wanted to do as little as possible, while still keeping the coop fresh and having a way to get the droppings for the compost pile.
Behold the chicken palace!
Standing in the garden looking at the chicken run and coop.
This is quite spacious for our seven birds, even with their food and water inside.
The six nesting boxes can be reached from the garden so we can gather eggs without going into the run. Very nice for our kids. The bar that the arrow is pointing at controls the door so we can close the chickens in when it is very cold. Again, without even going in the chicken area. The roof is slanted because of the snow load, but also, we have plans to install a gutter and pipes to catch the rain water and direct it into tanks inside for the birds to drink. For now, we just put their heated water jug into the coop, along with their food bucket. Later, we will add a tube we can fill with food from outside that goes into a container inside they can eat out of.
The corrugated plastic windows allow the sun to come in and warm the coop. Seems to be working, we've collected a dozen eggs in the last four days. Not too bad for winter, from what we hear. The coop sits about two feet off the ground, which gives a small area underneath for them to sit in the shade in summer. Or, in winter gives them a protected area to scratch in when the rest of the run is covered in snow.
On the left side you can see an electrical box. That is a switch to control a light inside. We can give them extra light, or put in a warming bulb if needed. Plus, we can plug in heaters for their water. The other side of the coop has doors that open, so we can ventilate in summer if the windows keep the coop too warm. Or, we open up and can clean the bottom.
We ordered dog flooring from Amazon for the bottom. It is an open grid that allows droppings to fall through. Not all do, so every now and again we open it up and rake the floor, which pushes everything through the grate where we can easily rake and scoop it up. The open flooring does keep the coop from getting as warm as we had hoped, but the chickens don't seem to mind. We have boards strung across the inside and the chickens love roosting on them.
One thing we've noticed is when the snow is deep and fresh and the chickens can't go out they go a little stir crazy. Or, rather, scratch crazy. They need to scratch things, so they turn to the nesting boxes. We've had to replace the bedding in there almost weekly because they just scratch it all out. We're considering putting a layer of cardboard over the grate floor and covering it with stray for them to scratch when they can't go outside. That would help keep the coop warmer, but it would mean dropping stay in the straw and get fragrant and harder to clean out. We'll keep experimenting and see what works best for the chickens.
All in all, the chicken coop as been a huge success and we're pleased with how well the birds are doing.
You can see a video tour at:
ReplyDeletehttps://youtu.be/TgT0C-qMS8k