Sunday, April 10, 2011

Chicken Coop - Part 2

If you missed it, here's part 1.

More work completed on the chicken coop.

These photos were taken just after I finished all the hen house siding and wire (1/2" hardware cloth). We brought out some of the chickens to let them play outside for a while. Since there still wasn't a door I temporarily attached the lid from the brooder.









One week later - I finished the chicken run door, hen house door, nest box, and pop door. The chickens are in these pictures too, but are not living there yet. It's not quite finished and not ready for them to move in. So we let them out to play for a few hours each day.







The nest box lid opens up for easy access to collect the eggs.



The side opens down to make for easy clean-out.



The hen house.





I do plan to clean up the tool clutter before the girls move in.



The pop door has a sliding panel. I'll attach a rope that will allow us to lift and secure it from outside the coop. I plan to have it motorized and automated some day, but manual will work for now. The upper-left opening is for the webcam.



A removable panel at the hen house door to hold back the bedding but still give us easy access to clean out the floor.



Some of the girls, out and about.



The last bit of work before the hens can move in is:
  1. Finish the trim
  2. Build ramp
  3. Stain
  4. Install windows
  5. Install roosts

Once they move in I can then :
  1. Install electrical (lights, etc)
  2. Install webcam



Go on to Part 3 - Complete
Part 4 - Update

12 comments:

  1. Love it Bill! So excited. Perhaps I'll move in too! We're planning on coming over to visit the week of June 15th. We'll be attending Soren's graduation on the 15th and then will head down to your house on Thursday and be there Thurs and Friday. Does that sound OK? Providing you'll be home, that is.

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  2. How do you do the chicken door constructionally? Am trying to visualize it but still not sure. If you could show a step by step on how you construct the door, it would be much appreciated.

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  3. @Skater Girl - I'm assuming you're talking about the sliding "pop" door. The door itself is just a 1/4" piece of plywood. It slides up and down in a track made with 2x4s that have a groove (or rabbet) cut into them. That's really all there is to it.

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  4. I am not sure if I have the tools to make rabbet cut. I only have skill saw and cordless drill.

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  5. @Skater Girl - If you can't get a friend to make the cuts for you, you can make fake rabbet cuts by just sandwiching 2 pieces of wood together, one wider than the other.

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  6. Do you have plans for this coop? It looks like what we need for our chickens and we are such novices when it comes to building that it would be good to have measurements and materials.

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    1. Sorry, I didn't put together plans, I just built it with some ideas in my head of what I wanted. But this video will help with dimensions and some supplies:
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oa6GpREYkzQ

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  7. how long did it take you to build this coop?

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    1. Working a little at a time in what spare time I had, it took a couple months.

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  8. Ok, so if I spent 4 weeks, almost every day, would I be able to get it done?

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    1. I'm not sure how fast you can build, but if I had all day, everyday available to build this I imagine that I could do it in about a week. If I had a helper it would probably take about 3 days. So 4 weeks shouldn't be a problem.

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