Hello!
Time to talk to about chickens! I've had some good learning experiences with them and learned a lot through research as well but im just going to jump right in and start with building my coop.
I started building my coop in May when it was warm. My boyfriend has a privacy fence in his yard and there were remanence of an old chicken coop built behind it but attached to the fence. the fence was one of the walls. So I decided that it was where I was going to put mine.
I ripped the old one down and cleaned up the area. I first put up a sheet of plastic to keep moisture out and protect from elements.
I then put insulation on the fence wall before I started any framing. After that we got a couple of posts in the ground parallel from the fence to attach framing to.
Did the floor joists and got the floor down and the inner wall up over the insulation. My floor is about a foot off the ground.
In the picture you can see the end of the fence. That's where the door to the coop is and how I get in there. On this opposite end is where the run starts and the chicken door is. I also made it so my long outer wall opens for easier clean out. The roof we have is metal but we are going to put shingles on as well next year.
The wood that I ended up using for walls and floor were really cheap and thin so I will have to see what I can do to replace or make them work next year. I did start painting them to help protect them.
I have a pully for the chicken door so that I can open it from the coop door side. The coop is about 8 foot by foot so its a bit long for me to just reach in and do it. The door for me to get into the run is at the other end of the run also. I have a window on the chicken door wall of the coop to let light in as well.
This is a picture of the inside of the coop from the coop door. As you can see I put board on the inside of wall that opens so that I can stuff straw in the wall for winter. I just put straw in there a week ago and it seems to work great!
I will post some more pictures below of my coop so you can see how it looks now that it is completely finished. I don't currently have a picture of the outside of the coop and its tarped right now so there's no getting one until next year but I will defiantly get some of the inside and the run :)
In my next post, I will talk more about my chickens and getting ready for winter.
Thank you for reading!