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My chicken coop plans!

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Re: My chicken coop plans!

Postby clothmama » Fri Feb 26, 2016 11:59 am

Oh and my pallet isn't as wide as I thought - and that is what I'm using as the house base. How big is your actual house bit of your coop @Allie and whoever else has chooks?

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Re: My chicken coop plans!

Postby Allie » Fri Feb 26, 2016 2:03 pm

@clothmama Do you mean the pop hole? Mine has a lever thingy (technical term :giggle: ) on the outside so I can just slide it shut from outside the run. The run then also has a door which is predator proof. Although my girls mostly freerange if we are away for a day or two they can stay in the run and the pophole can remain open as the run is predator proof. Hope that makes sense?

clothmama wrote:Oh and my pallet isn't as wide as I thought - and that is what I'm using as the house base. How big is your actual house bit of your coop @Allie and whoever else has chooks?


How many chickens are you expecting to have? We only have 3 and they only really go into the house to lay eggs and to sleep. The actual house bit does not need to be massive, the outdoor space is really more important in my opinion. So long as they are not overcrowded you should be fine. Having said that my 3 snuggle up together at night in the teeny nest box and the rest of the house is empty :roll: .

Btw sand is a good choice and very easy to keep clean. I can recommend a product called stalosan F to keep it lovely and fresh smelling. I use shredded paper in my nest boxes, it's free and easy to come by. My neighbours and friends give me theirs :lol: . I've heard that straw can attract redmite as it's hollow and easy for them to hide in. I've never used it so can't comment really.

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Re: My chicken coop plans!

Postby clothmama » Fri Feb 26, 2016 6:54 pm

Allie wrote:@clothmama Do you mean the pop hole? Mine has a lever thingy (technical term :giggle: ) on the outside so I can just slide it shut from outside the run.

Ahhh I knew there would be a name - the pop hole - so don't feel bad about your lack of technicality @Allie I didnt' even know what the 'door' was called :giggle: ! That is what I have on the current plan but realised that I also need one for getting from the day run into the coop as that is the first defence against the foxes! I'm actually hoping that I can get J to build me an automated one for that! I also want to be able to leave them in the coop if we are away for a couple of days. So you shut them in the coop house at night even though the enclosed run is safe?

Allie wrote:How many chickens are you expecting to have? We only have 3 and they only really go into the house to lay eggs and to sleep. The actual house bit does not need to be massive, the outdoor space is really more important in my opinion.

I'm hoping to get 3 normal sized and then 2 bantams (white silkies) but I understand that they can be addictive so I've kind of allowed for that (I think - I keep reading different 'minimums' for space!). So at this stage the 'house' is 1x1.2m plus the 3 nesting boxes which are 30cmx30cm each with enclosed run and house totalling 2x2m then about 40m2 of day run. I'm thinking I'll try to eventually build something that I can put up and down that they can go to other parts of the garden too (have been reading about the debugging benefits they have!!) so when a section of the veggie garden is empty they can go in and 'clear it up'.

Allie wrote:Having said that my 3 snuggle up together at night in the teeny nest box and the rest of the house is empty :roll: .

:giggle: :giggle: bless them!

Allie wrote:I've heard that straw can attract redmite as it's hollow and easy for them to hide in. I've never used it so can't comment really.

See I thought that straw was out but I've now read that a lot of peeps use it for in the nesting boxes - I reserve the right to change my mind again before I'm done :giggle:

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Re: My chicken coop plans!

Postby Allie » Fri Feb 26, 2016 7:13 pm

@clothmama I do shut the pophole to the coop most of the time but if we're away and can't get anyone to do it then it's not closed.

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Re: My chicken coop plans!

Postby clothmama » Sun Feb 28, 2016 6:19 pm

I realised I'd not actually measured the concrete base in a long long time and thought I'd better double check before making all my purchases. Seems I'd had a bit of a memory fail - the concrete is actually 2 x 2.2 m :x :x so I'll have to redo my plans. Why on earth did I not do this before :x :x :giggle:

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Re: My chicken coop plans!

Postby clothmama » Sun Feb 28, 2016 6:24 pm

On the up side it gives me extra interior space so all good!!

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Re: My chicken coop plans!

Postby clothmama » Sun Feb 28, 2016 6:38 pm

Oh and also did another measure out of the run space - the run is no where near a rectangle (although if I want to do it with only one roll of 25 metres fencing then it may have to be!) but potentially I can have quite a bit more outdoor space than I thought if I make it a kind of triangle at the back. I'm going to have a look and see how much extra it will be for some extra fencing (or potentially I can look at just doing what I can with one roll and doing extensions later).

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Re: My chicken coop plans!

Postby Willo2 » Thu Mar 03, 2016 11:27 am

It looks like it'll be fantastic. We use bark in the bottom of ours. It attracts lots of bugs for them to scuffle around finding and we add it to the compost when it looks like its seen better days. We have amazing compost since doing that!

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Re: My chicken coop plans!

Postby clothmama » Tue Jun 21, 2016 11:39 am

As I posted on the other thread my Silkie babies are ready to come home - I had thought we weren't getting them as one had died and I thought they'd want to keep the ones for me as they did want one. Anyway she is happy for me to have them so I need to build ASAP (like next couple of days) a coop so I'm going to build a chicken tractor that I can move around my yard in a quick A frame design. Chicken wire mesh (the stronger square stuff) ordered - 50 meters so should be enough for the chicken tractor for my baby silkies to live in straight away, and the big coop and the fencing! It will be here tomorrow so may see if I can find enough wood hanging around to make the A frame and if not need to work out what I need and go and get it from somewhere!

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