I have a new barn / chicken coop omg

So I have to share with you guys that my DH has cashed in some shares and got me a garage packege from Totem to turn into a barn/coop ..............best of all it is 6 ft away from the house. It will mean no draging out 150 ft of garden hose pipes once a week to water my animals, no walking throw the deep snow , no living out in the barn when the goats are having their babies. OMG I have been spoiled.
Barn/coop is 28x30 ft in size, my DH wanted all my critters in the same place and for them to have a furnace that will keep the temp just above freezing for them.

At the moment it is built paid a friend to build the building , we put the shingles up and are working on the insulation and soffets at the moment ( spelt wrong opps) any way last weekend we were fencing putting in new pens for all the goats, sheep , llama , donkey and horse to play in. Post are in and wire still to go up. OSB boards delivered yesterday now to carry 45 boards into the barn omg not liike forwward to that one.
But I have a problem is the furnace is a garage one and to keep everyone warm wire will have to seperate the space between both the 4 legged animals and the birds. We have installed a barn fan so nice and big to keep the air quality good for them all, but here goes the problem .............my DH thinks the animals should be locked out all day and just let in at night so the door can stay closed. I want the animals to have free access to the barn .............so how do we keep the barn/coop warm during the day with the man door open any ideas. All I could think of was 1 foot wide pieces of carpet over lapping each other to creat a barrier over the door way hopefully keeping most of the heat in.

So any ideas please would be great. At the moment no walls are up inside so perfect time to sort things out. I also want easy feeding system for the bird as well as watering and egg collecting.

I have 8 breeds of chicken and they will all have there own sections to live in for pure breed chickens all year

Oh wow, now that is just one wonderful thing to hear. That is a very large structure, I would give my kingdom for a big home like that. Sounds like you are going to have the most awesome place for the birds and critters. I won't comment on how to build, what to do, but I bet you will hear loads of stuff from other people. And I can bet my bottom dollar that you are going to have different ideas once you get things all in place, sigh...been there, done that. Building, thinking of better designing and then changing that. Seems there is always a better way. You are wise to get advice from others that have these large places, like you will have, for the farmyard lives. Yay, no wonder you are excited and stoked. Lots of fun coming and it is going to be a joy!! Have an awesome day, CynthiaM.

No more living in the barn in the spring? Oh my Gordon, I would be living out there year round! You are a lucky gal, Crazygirl!

That is great! Congratulations. Lou

Sounds fantastic! I look forward to seeing photos.

Schipperkesue wrote:No more living in the barn in the spring? Oh my Gordon, I would be living out there year round! You are a lucky gal, Crazygirl!

This year kids were born in March year before in Feb so I don't even get to wait until Spring time.
Buck will have a good fence so no early births ...........hopefully.
I am keeping back a buckling from Zuce little Peter was off Mocca that got her legs caught in the door so he was raised on both mom and a bottle from me a super sweet boy like his daddy. Mind I will need another buck for 2 girls but they can both have the year off.

Jealous! It sounds amazing.

I did tease my DH on asking for a bunk bed over my bucks pen for birthing times lol
Mind I also asked for ok you ready a tv and electric fire place with flames so I could have movie night with my animals and chickens now how cool would that be ............I know don't say it I am a crazy lady lol

That sounds like a nice barn you got there Michelle!
I would suggest you divide it up with a wall. One side can have stalls for your four leg animals and the other side have the heater for the birds. You can have a couple windows on the wall that can be opened and closed for heating both sides if you want. You can open the windows at night and close them during the day to keep the birds warm. Or, you can set up one or two small stalls on the bird side for birthing, sick, or whatever else, and not even bother heating the other side. I think you will be amazed at how much heat those four leg critters will give off! I don't think supplying heat to them is going to be a concern. Ventilation for the humidity should be considered though.

It sounds very exciting to be able to design your barn!
Makes sense to me too to have two ends, one for birds, the other for 4 legged creatures...the nursery could be in the middle?
I remember An had some interesting pics when she built her new chicken house. She had pens that had removable dividers so you could set them up for breeding and then take them away for the winter or cleaning...
Another place I remember seeing pics of, had stall like dividers for the different chicken pens but they shared a waterer with the pen beside them,it was set up between the divider so each could access the water. Then at the walkway end there was individual tube feeders set up so all you had to do was open the top and the feed would run down the tube into the pen ( I think they were abs pipes?)
You could feed without going into the pens every time.
Ah the dreams! enjoy!

Nice ! but a word of caution if I may .......OSB board is great but unless coated with a very good paint will start to wear very fast ! I would put "" Puck "" board all around the bottom four feet and sealed to the floor to keep that from happening .As far as the flap thing for the opening ? well most animals aren't smart enough to figure out that they can get through just by pushing on the material to gain accesss to the other side .If the pressure inside the building is greater then that outside then there should be minemal heat loss ,but there will be some .You could build a barrier wall on the inside that would block some of the area access that the wind / cold has for entery and still allow the animals access in and out ? If that makes sense ??

Great ideas everyone most of all I do like your idea Dark wing duck with the wall in the middle with windows great idea and I think that would work.
I was thinking pvc piping as feeders and waters some how have to think more. I also want to have nesting boxes that open up on a central walk way so I just lift a lid and collect.
I have a man door in the middle of the barn/coop and one across from it in line. I wanted a walk way that I can feed all animals most of all the goats with out not being knocked around when they are hungry and all they want is food.

The other problem is the wall that will be up on the goats side to hold them back my DH wants the animals cleaned out once a week not deep bedded. So I need a way of having a wall but being able to lift it up or move it to clean. The walk way will have a gate at the end so at night when they are all in I can close off the walk way and then re open it in the morning.
Thanks for all the help. There is so much to think about and with not wanting to keepp changing it all over and over untill every thing works as I want it to it sure helps with many a good mind working together on this. I will post pictures very soon.

OSB boards have gone up in price since Summer time when they were like $7 per 4x8 board annd now your looking at just under $14 per board. So wonder why.
Had 45 osb boards delivered on Monday for the inside. Oh also I may have to have my horse home for the Winter time waiting to find out my CT results on Friday, but had a fall on the last ice of the year and have not ridden in 5 months. I fractured my scarum bone all the way across and now have more pain. Mind I still do things I know I should not opps.
The problem would be my horse is an easy keeper or should I say he wears a grazing muzzle during the Summer time to restrict the amount of grass he can eat. So if he is home for the Wintertime how to stop him from eatting too much if goats have as much as they need with out making a stall for him.