Appalachickens
Songster
I joined BYC a few years ago, after we'd bought land but before we had built our house and moved. The first two years I devoted to planting fruit trees and native plants, but I've got 9 chicks on the way next April and have started working on a coop and run. I thought I'd post progress as I go. But warning - it's going to be a slow build! My son is doing the framing for me, so I'm dependent on his schedule.
There is virtually no flat land on our property, here in the ridge and valley region of East Tennessee. We have steep ridges on three sides, and the property goes from an elevation of 1400 feet to 1900 feet. The best place to put a coop was below the house, on a VERY narrow strip of land between the woods and a garden shed and mini orchard. I'm limited to four feet across, but have more room in the other direction. To further complicate matters, our electric lines are buried here, so no digging.
As the weather is fairly mild, I'm building an open air coop, open on the southern end. We did the floor framing first, with notched-out 4X4's on cement pier blocks. Once the floor was finished, my son got on it and jumped up and down to make sure it was stable and sturdy. I even got under the coop and painted the underside of the floor with deck sealant to help protect the wood. We're part of the Appalachian temperate rain forest, so every bit of wood will have sealant on it.
There was no good flat area to do framing, so we carried the boards up the driveway to the garage and then lugged the finished framed walls back down.
So far, we've done the long west side wall, which will be solid, the back wall that will be a door for cleaning, and the open front wall. The coop will be 4 feet wide and 12 feet long, with roosts in the back end, nesting boxes in the middle, and a covered area for a feeder in the front with a roof that extends another couple of feet for rain protection. It's a little over 6 feet high inside. The run will extend out from the front and be entirely enclosed in hardware cloth since the coop is open. Coop and run together will be 136 SF.
In a couple weeks, we'll do the long east side wall and the roof, then my husband and I will start covering everything in plywood and put on the metal roof panels. The area under the coop will also be encased in HC and provide an additional shady space. Our primary predators here are owls, hawks, bald eagles, coyotes, foxes, raccoons, and bobcats. And recently a bear, which tore out the wheel well of our truck, but has only come by once.
One question I have is about the ventilation. The open part is 4X6+, so a little over 24 square feet of permanent ventilation. I was thinking about putting some HC covered vents at the top of the the west wall (well above the roosts) since it is so long and it seems like the air should have a way to escape on the closed-in end. Does that make sense? And if so, how much vent space would I need? My understanding is that the winds generally come from the north and east here, so those sides are closed. It will be sunnier in the winter and shaded by the trees in the summer.
It's an unusual design because of the constraints of the land, but I'm happy with how it's coming together.
There is virtually no flat land on our property, here in the ridge and valley region of East Tennessee. We have steep ridges on three sides, and the property goes from an elevation of 1400 feet to 1900 feet. The best place to put a coop was below the house, on a VERY narrow strip of land between the woods and a garden shed and mini orchard. I'm limited to four feet across, but have more room in the other direction. To further complicate matters, our electric lines are buried here, so no digging.
As the weather is fairly mild, I'm building an open air coop, open on the southern end. We did the floor framing first, with notched-out 4X4's on cement pier blocks. Once the floor was finished, my son got on it and jumped up and down to make sure it was stable and sturdy. I even got under the coop and painted the underside of the floor with deck sealant to help protect the wood. We're part of the Appalachian temperate rain forest, so every bit of wood will have sealant on it.
There was no good flat area to do framing, so we carried the boards up the driveway to the garage and then lugged the finished framed walls back down.
So far, we've done the long west side wall, which will be solid, the back wall that will be a door for cleaning, and the open front wall. The coop will be 4 feet wide and 12 feet long, with roosts in the back end, nesting boxes in the middle, and a covered area for a feeder in the front with a roof that extends another couple of feet for rain protection. It's a little over 6 feet high inside. The run will extend out from the front and be entirely enclosed in hardware cloth since the coop is open. Coop and run together will be 136 SF.
In a couple weeks, we'll do the long east side wall and the roof, then my husband and I will start covering everything in plywood and put on the metal roof panels. The area under the coop will also be encased in HC and provide an additional shady space. Our primary predators here are owls, hawks, bald eagles, coyotes, foxes, raccoons, and bobcats. And recently a bear, which tore out the wheel well of our truck, but has only come by once.
One question I have is about the ventilation. The open part is 4X6+, so a little over 24 square feet of permanent ventilation. I was thinking about putting some HC covered vents at the top of the the west wall (well above the roosts) since it is so long and it seems like the air should have a way to escape on the closed-in end. Does that make sense? And if so, how much vent space would I need? My understanding is that the winds generally come from the north and east here, so those sides are closed. It will be sunnier in the winter and shaded by the trees in the summer.
It's an unusual design because of the constraints of the land, but I'm happy with how it's coming together.
