Converting storage shed into a bantam coop

Hannahnic14

Crowing
Apr 29, 2021
1,204
2,610
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Middle Tennessee
So my husband did this for me for my birthday this weekend and I just have to brag on him and show you guys!!

The current breeds in my bantam flock are as follows. Red cochin, silkie (4 colors), gold campine, self blue old english, belgian d'anver, d'uccle (mille fleur and porcelain), gold and silver sebright. Most of these are still in a brooder.

The best thing is, the only supplies we had to buy were the 2X4's! (Those were expensive enough🙄)

Ok, so we have a 10X16 storage shed beside our house. And I wanted a nice coop for my bantam flock so why not!
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We only converted half of it because we still need some storage area at the moment. But in a few month we are going to move all of that out and use the other half for brooder boxes!
This is the part we converted for the time being.
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We framed up a divider wall and a door. A little over 7 foot tall. (This is a semi-permanent wall)
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Covered the top half of the door, (and side walls) in chicken wire and the bottom 3 feet with plywood. That way they don't get too much of a draft when the shed doors are open and it keeps the pine shavings contained. The shelves you see to the right will be divided into nesting boxes. And we obviously have to add some more ventilation at the top of the walls on either side.
We will also be adding a flip up door on the side wall somewhere so we can clean it easier!
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Until we are able to get the ventilation in, I will open the main doors during the day and I have a small fan running on low to keep air circulating. We have large dogs that patrol our property so I'm not worried about predators during the day. The dogs can't get in the coop because the door latches.
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We still have to add alot more pine shavings and move the pressure washer out. That will be done today. They seem to like it though!
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This is the little ladder and outside coop door. It has a latch to keep it up during the day. We have about 80ft of temporary fencing from Premier1 that we are going to use for the run until we can build a permanent one. There is also hardware cloth covering the gap between the bottom of the building and the ground. It extends under the building and is staked into the ground so nothing can dig.
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I'll end up having 15-20 bantams at most. The permanent run will be quite large, we just don't have specifics yet. But I'm thinking a 10X16 or even 10X20 will be good when I did the square footage calculations. They will be able to free range eventually, when we are able to get a fence up between us and our neighbors. Lol. This is our first ever coop project so I'm sure we did alot of things wrong.😂 But as long as they have adequate space, ventilation and are cool, clean and dry, that's the most important right??
 
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But as long as they have adequate space, ventilation and are cool, clean and dry, that's the most important right??
Yes!
And you need to add more ventilation. I would pry off the trim boards on the corners of the coop/shed and set a circular saw to the depth of the siding and cut off the top 8 inches of the siding and staple 1/2" hardware cloth over the opening, reinstall the corner trim and make new trim to cover the cut end of the siding to further secure the HC and make it look nice.
I would also pop the cap shingles off, set the circular saw blade to the thickness of your shingles plus roof deck and rip 2 inches off each side of the ridge, install a ridge vent and new cap shingles.
Have you installed 1/2" hardware cloth over the window? I would also frame out more windows at roost height that you can leave open during the summer. You can find old windows that people frequently give away and install them hinged at the top and use hooks and chains to hold them open. Again, back the hole with 1/2" hardware cloth.
That is a GREAT shed for your new coop. You're off to a good start.
 
Yes!
And you need to add more ventilation. I would pry off the trim boards on the corners of the coop/shed and set a circular saw to the depth of the siding and cut off the top 8 inches of the siding and staple 1/2" hardware cloth over the opening, reinstall the corner trim and make new trim to cover the cut end of the siding to further secure the HC and make it look nice.
I would also pop the cap shingles off, set the circular saw blade to the thickness of your shingles plus roof deck and rip 2 inches off each side of the ridge, install a ridge vent and new cap shingles.
Have you installed 1/2" hardware cloth over the window? I would also frame out more windows at roost height that you can leave open during the summer. You can find old windows that people frequently give away and install them hinged at the top and use hooks and chains to hold them open. Again, back the hole with 1/2" hardware cloth.
That is a GREAT shed for your new coop. You're off to a good start.
Thank you for the input! The window does have screening over it.
 
You're off to a great start. Doing it in stages is good because you have manageable projects. But do protect the stuff you're still storing in there from chicken dander, litter dust, and, worst of all, dried poop dust. It will build up rapidly.

But as long as they have adequate space, ventilation and are cool, clean and dry, that's the most important right??

Yes. When the need for space, weather protection, and ventilation is met the chickens are much less fussy than we humans are. :)

I would pry off the trim boards on the corners of the coop/shed and set a circular saw to the depth of the siding and cut off the top 8 inches of the siding and staple 1/2" hardware cloth over the opening, reinstall the corner trim and make new trim to cover the cut end of the siding to further secure the HC and make it look nice.
I would also pop the cap shingles off, set the circular saw blade to the thickness of your shingles plus roof deck and rip 2 inches off each side of the ridge, install a ridge vent and new cap shingles.

Excellent advice.
 
So we are going to take the window out, widen it to 6 ft, then cover with hardware cloth. It will have shutters that we can close during the winter and at night. Then we will have 2 cut outs on each side wall at the top measuring about 1X3 (for each cutout, total of 4 sections). Does that sound adequate? My calculations come to 36 square feet, I won't have anymore than 25 birds. Probably closer to 15-20.
 
So we are going to take the window out, widen it to 6 ft, then cover with hardware cloth. It will have shutters that we can close during the winter and at night. Then we will have 2 cut outs on each side wall at the top measuring about 1X3 (for each cutout, total of 4 sections). Does that sound adequate? My calculations come to 36 square feet, I won't have anymore than 25 birds. Probably closer to 15-20.

Just remember that anything you ever close doesn't count toward the 1 square foot per bird figure. :)

The cutouts at the top sound good. A triangle 1 foot tall and 3 feet wide gives you 1.5 square feet of ventilation -- right exactly where you need it most. :)
 
Just remember that anything you ever close doesn't count toward the 1 square foot per bird figure. :)

The cutouts at the top sound good. A triangle 1 foot tall and 3 feet wide gives you 1.5 square feet of ventilation -- right exactly where you need it most. :)
Oh ok, so it would be better not to close the window?
 

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