Coop floor plan - suggestions?

With warmer weather predicted - finally - for next week, I may actually be able to work on my chicken coop!

I want to do everything right the first time, so if you see any glaring mistakes or omissions in my plan, PLEASE let me know! More outlets? Different placement? More windows? Less windows? The whole thing sucks? Let me hear it!

I am using an existing 14x24 building. The back half, with a dirt floor, will be for my chickens, with part of it temporarily partitioned off for freezer camp and the other part for the hens. It will be insulated and heated on cold days.

The front half, with a wood floor, will be uninsulated and used for storage and future (fair weather) breeding pens.

I have 24 chicks coming in June, straight run, so the extra roosters will be delicious. Planning on keeping a couple of the best white Chantecler roos for future breeding purposes.

I am planning on doing poop boards with stall dry in them underneath ladder roosts (two 2x4's on the flat, 12" apart and one 12" above the other).

Coop floor plan:





The overall plan including outdoor runs:



Fencing will be hardware cloth on the bottom 24" with stucco wire for the 54" above that, and 2" flight netting on top of everything.


Future plans: I will probably build some moveable fence panels to allow for more rotation of the pens, but that won't really be a concern until 2014, since the chicks are coming later in the year.

Are you leaveing the floor as dirt ? I would question that a bit ,after a while the saturation would be fairly deep and the smell ? ,Thats my question

prairie dog wrote:Are you leaveing the floor as dirt ? I would question that a bit ,after a while the saturation would be fairly deep and the smell ? ,Thats my question

I am planning on doing the deep litter method - that should be okay, yes?

Looks good. Here is what I found I would change if ever a new coop comes my way:
I would INSIST on one set of double doors or one small overhead door as wide as my utility tractor bucket. Cleaning floors is already much work, it adds ten-fold when each fork full has to go out the little man door. If I could drive my tractor inside and park to load, even Better!

I would INSIST on a separate, closed-off room for storage/feed. Chickens are horribly dusty and dirty. Horribly.

Lucky girl!
I'm stuck with what was here already; a walled-in calf shelter. You don't understand fully how low ceiling in calf shelter is until you're half way through cleaning it out. Aoowwweeee my back!
And the only door is 5' tall, and 2' wide. It's actually cute because they walled out two compartments. But what a pain. The pitchfork can touch two walls at any angle!!!

But, the low ceiling also means that with the right number of birds it stays nice and cosy in there in winter.

If possible, build you roosts so you can remove them. I know you are using dropping boards, but if for some reason you ever want to clean or work underneath the roosts, it is sure nice if they unhook from the wall or fold up on hinges. My big roost is fixed in place and I lean and scrape and it's awkward. The smaller roost is free standing and rests on nails in the wall. I just pick it up and prop it against the wall at cleaning time. Much better!

I also have the area under my roost separated with a 1x6 on edge. This helps the poopy shavings stay right under the roosts, and the birds can't kick it around much. WHen it's time to shovel I usually only shovel out the poo pit. THe rest of the bedding is fairly poop free. Then I scoop up the rest of the bedding and toss it into the empty poo pit. This means that I only need to clean a limited square footage. It also means that all bedding gets used twice, once on main floor then tossed into poo pit. Then I just sprinkle some clean bedding on main floor area.

Looks good. I wish I had dirt floors in mine.
Think about a covered portion to your outdoor run. They will go out, especially since it sounds like you are getting some Chanteclers, especially if they have dirt outside. Saves having to shovel everytime it snows. Then there is some outdoor space even if you don't have time to shovel for a day or two.
I look forward to see photos of it.

Oh man! I knew you guys would have good suggestions.

Katuski, I don't have to insist on anything - as head carpenter, I just do what I want!

The storage area is closed off from the main coop. If I decide to add a couple of breeding pens, I think I can manage okay. I am an expert at sweeping barns.

Unfortunately, I don't think I can do a netted run AND be able to get the bobcat up to the doors. I will be wheelbarrowing it from the coop door to the gate. Luckily, I am very experienced in this type of labour.

Coopslave, I am still not sure on the covered portion of the outdoor run. The roof is quite low on the sides of the coop, so to extend that would make it too low to walk under, and would also block the light to the windows on that side. I could extend out the rear (left side on the drawing), maybe, at the same height as the rest of the roof.

Lots of great advice. I agree with coop, it is so nice to have a covered area outside. I put my feeders and water outside, i find this helps with other critters that want to come in. Definetly removable roosts, and double doors. Think about cleaning it out. Take a good look at your ventilation and how best you can do that. I agree that a dirt floor is the only way to go. What I will be doing with the larger coop I will be building this year is making sure the dirt floor has good drainage.

The other thing I do is have my nest boxes so the are entered from inside but you can collect the eggs from outside.

Tell me why the dirt floor? I don't get it.

Make sure it's a pounded dirt floor, helps stop predation from underneath -- could also put a layer of hardware cloth, but I think that hinders the gutting out when it needs to be done. Deep litter method has worked well for me, this winter excluded. I find the smell is absolutely nill if the coop is dry and the birds grind down the bedding to a fine pulp. Pull out the big stuff, leave the small stuff. I ended up with so much moisture out here it's just coming up through the dirt floor and into the bedding. Even with the windows and holes wide open I can't get the moisture out.

Katsuki: you can't do deep litter easily without a dirt floor, the principle is, essentially, live action composting beneath your girls' feet.

Removable roosts are definitely do-able, thanks for that suggesting Uno and bckev!

I am inheriting some rollaway nest boxes, so I plan on using those. If the hens don't like it, I have a couple of other ideas in mind - the exterior egg access is one of them.

bckev, the south side of the coop has big 30x36 windows and I am going to put in two more 22x36 windows on the north side. I am building the windows myself, so that I can remove the entire glass portion for summer and fair weather (like old-school storm windows), or have just a portion of the glass open on cold days, or close them up completely. In total, I will have 26 sq. ft. of windows. Using the 1 sq. ft. of ventilation per 10 sq. ft. of floor space rule, that would be enough for 260 sq. ft. of floor space, and the coop is only 143 sq. ft. There is also a small roof vent that leads up to the cupolas on top, though I don't know how effective that really is.

This is a view of the west and north sides of the building. Sadly, most of that snow is still there.

Sweetened wrote:Make sure it's a pounded dirt floor, helps stop predation from underneath --

It should be well-pounded, I think the building has been there since the 1940's or earlier. We have an aerial photo from 1954 and the building doesn't look new in it. A few times, we've put cows & calves in there and it was home to a horse a time or two. It has concrete footings, too.

I love a good dirt floor!

Im interested in these rollaway nestboxes... details?

Sweetened wrote:Im interested in these rollaway nestboxes... details?

Ummm ... if I remember correctly, they look just like the Seven Oaks ones.

I have three coops. In each I practice deep litter. It gets better every year.

One coop has concrete. It is the smelliest. The odors cannot penetrate the floor and any water that gets in stays in.

One coop has a wood floor that is rotting away. I can't wait for it to be totally rotted and disintegrated. It's is a little less smelly.

The third has a dirt floor. I just keep adding straw and the chicks just keep churning it up. It never smells. Deep litter works best with a dirt floor.

Here is a suggestion if you think you might get flooding. At the lowest area outside the coop dig a really deep hole. Take two big buckets, remove the floor from one, stack them and drill them with holes. Put them in the dug out hole and backfill around the outside with gravel. In the spring it will be full of ice. Melt it with a trough heater and put in a sump pump with a float. Send the pump out hose as far downhill as you cam. You will never have flooding barns again.

No flooding - it's at the top of a slope. The cattle corral is located higher, but it doesn't drain towards the coop.

I have a wood floor because the building is built on skids, up in the air. As a result of cold air blowing under the hen house, it's hard to heat. I don't mind my wood floors and having them up in the air keeps them from rotting (plus they're cedar). But if I had it to do again I would build a new floor of wood and lay those black rubber mats made from recycled tires. I think they would add a layer of insulation (maybe not!) and keep the moisture off the floor. And if you had to hose them down every spring, rubber is fine for hosing.

I have a smaller hen house with a dirt floor and keeping the mice out is impossible! They tunnel and burrow like you wouldn't believe.

My hen house is only 12x12, and since I only shovel out the area immediately under the roost, in winter I do this by shovelling into a 5 gallon bucket and packing it out by the bucket load. 5 trips to the manure pile outside and it's done. But this is for a small area and small number of birds.

it looks good

Schipperkesue wrote:

Here is a suggestion if you think you might get flooding. At the lowest area outside the coop dig a really deep hole. Take two big buckets, remove the floor from one, stack them and drill them with holes. Put them in the dug out hole and backfill around the outside with gravel. In the spring it will be full of ice. Melt it with a trough heater and put in a sump pump with a float. Send the pump out hose as far downhill as you cam. You will never have flooding barns again.

Genius! That is good info.

I will try to get some pictures of my genius chicken sump.

Could you make a roof/overhang out of windows or light fiberglass panels so light gets in?

farmchiq wrote:Could you make a roof/overhang out of windows or light fiberglass panels so light gets in?

One of my pens roof lets light in part of it. Part of it is solid so they get some shade in the summer.

I ran the idea past Himself and he is not opposed to extending an area off of the east side (extending the peak). Which is good, since I am pretty sure he'll have to help with that part of the project.

I really like the lay out of your coop and I love that it's in a cool old building that is getting re-purposed (but not really because it was a coop previous, maybe rejuvenated?). Technically my coop is less then a third complete as my Mr keeps adding me to the plans every time we go out there to look and ponder.