Help - Omlet Eglu owners - how to ventilate the roost?

[Bawkbok]

You described our situation exactly - they line up waiting behind the one in the door way that refuses to fully enter at night. The last one in at night is the first one poking her head out in the morning but she stands in the doorway for more than 5 minutes (I've timed it) while the others are impatiently trying to poke their way past her or chirping get out of the way. It's goofy. Your solution is perfect. I can't wait to implement it.

 

[ChicoryBlue]

WOW - I love what you've done to modify the cube. The sun platform is a fantastic idea. Thank you for posting the pics and the details on installation. It is now high on my (husband's) to do list. With the ladder being off to the side, our girls never go over there and this would certainly solve that problem, placing it in the middle. Not to mention the BO likes to hang out at the door in the am forcing the others to wait behind her to clumsily half fly / half jump down. The platform would solve that issue too. It's genious.

Some thoughts about the ladder placement - I put it with enough space for one bird to go by (single file) on the left and two+ birds on the right. So it’s not exactly in the middle.

It’s partly for integration / escape reasons, only one bird can go that way at a time. (I also placed an upside-down bucket right under the coop as a go-round for awhile, to prevent getting trapped back there.)

It also allowed room on the right to put a small stump on the far right as a step to jump up from for the younger ones if they wanted, leaving enough room to jump-fly up next to it for those who wanted to. I don’t have a stump there now, but two birds can be standing next to each other, eyeing the veranda, getting ready, etc., at the same time.

I don’t know if this is anything critical though, and a middle placement might have its own advantages.

 

[Bawkbok]

Thank you for sharing your thoughts and details. It appears in your photo that you have a 9 foot extension making the entire space with coop 12 feet. We only have a total of 9 feet, attached to a 9x12 run so I don't know if we'll have enough space for a veranda, it would have to be a small one or it would take up half the space, putting the ladder in the middle of the 'doorway' from the run to the coop area. Does that make sense? What is the measurement size of your veranda?

 

[ChicoryBlue]

Thank you for sharing your thoughts and details. It appears in your photo that you have a 9 foot extension making the entire space with coop 12 feet. We only have a total of 9 feet, attached to a 9x12 run so I don't know if we'll have enough space for a veranda, it would have to be a small one or it would take up half the space, putting the ladder in the middle of the 'doorway' from the run to the coop area. Does that make sense? What is the measurement size of your veranda?

I thought I have a total of ~9 feet long including the Cube (it’s the Cube plus 2 sections). It’s attached to a 6x12 Walk In Run, on the 6 feet wide side. The veranda doesn’t take up a whole section, it’s maybe two feet deep? So I think there’s room, a section plus, beyond the ladder. Maybe I’m imagining it! I’ll go out and measure and take some photos.

 

[ChicoryBlue]

Here's pictures. The veranda is a scrap piece of birch plywood, 27"+- front to back, and 34"+-, it's not square so it's an eighth to a quarter inch different depending on where you measure! All I did was sand the corners. It's resting on two 2x2" 's under it, and is snug up against the Cube, on the ladder tubes too.

Yup I have a Cube run length of ~9 feet.

What you're also seeing are the greenhouse frames (one broken) so I can walk through and around the Cube comfortably, with strong aviary netting on them and tarps and sun shade mesh hung from the underside. This setup is the summer setup, aviary netting, WIR doors open and one panel lifted. They have a big area further back shaded by trees with one greenhouse frame and then fence poles holding up aviary netting. Perimeter electric fencing around all.

In winter the panel will come down and the doors usually closed, certainly if I remove the fencing and netting for expected heavy snow, it is necessary for predators. I still have to hardware cloth this WIR run along the bottom. This is why I like the security of the Cube at night, in case anyone gets through.

Here is the best view of how far the porch and the ladder extend:

I wouldn't go much deeper because it's nice to be able to reach over the veranda to the doorway if you ever need to.

Here is the underside to give you an idea of how I did it. The veranda board is not actually attached to anything. I think the ladder and the Cube against it and it's own weight keep it from shifting. It's good like this, I easily lifted off the ladder and then the board, and unclipped the 2x2 's when I shoveled out & replaced the litter under the Cube a while ago and washed everything (due to Northern fowl mites, I seem to get them once a year here).

You can barely make out the eye screw on the underside of each 2x2 end which the zip tie goes through

I didn't have 1x10 boards under the Cube holding litter in because there used to be wheels there.

Here's Annie (Buff Orp) telling me she's thinking of laying her egg soon, she kept talking to me and jumping up and down and going in, and there's Hazel (Buckeye) wondering what I'm up to also.

 

[Bawkbok]

Thank you, ChickoryBlue, for those excellent photos. We have an almost identical set up. I now understand why I'll have a problem with the spacing and the ladder. We left the angular side kit attachments on the sides of the small run, attached to the large run, thinking we had to use the attachment kit to attach the two together. This narrows the doorway opening and forces me to still have to squeeze through a small space to clean under the coop. The kit is totally unnecessary as I see how you've attached yours to the run. I like the way you've attached the ladder, very creative. Thank you for the effort to take the pics.
Your set up is most definitely critter proof for sure. I've wrapped the entire run in a flexible garden cloth and attached with hundreds of zippy ties. It has extremely small openings to deter the squirrels which were actually getting in the large upper squares on the run and tormenting the girls. I obviously have points of failure as I saw a squirrel in there again today and the fat bugger can actually squeeze through the garden cloth 1/4 inch opening - it stretches but doesn't break. I wouldn't have believed it to be possible if I didn't see it happen. I guess I'll just upgrade to hardware cloth all the way around. I can't stand squirrels and I encourage my dog to run them off when he's out.
We have a Buff Orpington as well and I hope she matures to be as pretty as your Annie (and gives us lots of eggies). She's only 5 months old, but very bold and fearless, haha.
Thank you again for your effort and the details. I now have more work to do. Does our effort to make our spaces safe for our girls ever end?

 

[ChicoryBlue]

Thank you, ChickoryBlue, for those excellent photos. We have an almost identical set up. I now understand why I'll have a problem with the spacing and the ladder. We left the angular side kit attachments on the sides of the small run, attached to the large run, thinking we had to use the attachment kit to attach the two together. This narrows the doorway opening and forces me to still have to squeeze through a small space to clean under the coop. The kit is totally unnecessary as I see how you've attached yours to the run. I like the way you've attached the ladder, very creative. Thank you for the effort to take the pics.
Your set up is most definitely critter proof for sure. I've wrapped the entire run in a flexible garden cloth and attached with hundreds of zippy ties. It has extremely small openings to deter the squirrels which were actually getting in the large upper squares on the run and tormenting the girls. I obviously have points of failure as I saw a squirrel in there again today and the fat bugger can actually squeeze through the garden cloth 1/4 inch opening - it stretches but doesn't break. I wouldn't have believed it to be possible if I didn't see it happen. I guess I'll just upgrade to hardware cloth all the way around. I can't stand squirrels and I encourage my dog to run them off when he's out.
We have a Buff Orpington as well and I hope she matures to be as pretty as your Annie (and gives us lots of eggies). She's only 5 months old, but very bold and fearless, haha.
Thank you again for your effort and the details. I now have more work to do. Does our effort to make our spaces safe for our girls ever end?

The hens here do not go to the end of the run when they come off the ladder or off the veranda, I don't think they'll have a problem with the connection kit (which I also bought, and used very unhappily until I switched to lining up one side and filling in with hardware cloth & zip ties where needed). They land short of that here, and will learn where they can go, they are much better at aiming than it appears IMO, I've seen hens deliberately go for landing on another chicken, just for fun it seems!

But you could do a 16- 20 inch deep veranda with much the same benefit as a deeper one. If I were you I'd mock up something easy to do and then observe. The ladder will hook over a 1x 3 on edge or a 2x2 and with zip ties would be pretty stable. Behind that there'll be a small gap and you could put another 2x2 and one in back and lay a board on those. The gap won't be much of a problem unless you have really tiny feet chickens.

Here's another angle shot showing how much distance there is. Off the ladder half way down they land about where Popcorn is now, or not past the middle of the waterer. I would be fine with the connection kit there, it's not there for me, not them lol!

Off the veranda they land about where the yellow feeder cups are, just before the end of the ladder.

Hope this helps!

 

[Bawkbok]

The aerial photos are great. Thank you for sharing. Yes, that will definitely work for us. I "made" hubby read this thread and he said that "someone else is as chicken crazy as you are" That's a compliment by the way. He really liked your idea and then quickly said I'll "have to wait until it cools off before renovations are made to the chicken condo"....yay..an autumn project.