CreveChris
Critically-endangered Crevecoeur breeder
It's been a year since completing our open-air coop, which I call the chicken greenhouse because it polycarbonate panel roofing and chicken-safe hanging plants designed for munching, if they desire.
I've been meaning to write an article, but since it is a specific custom build, I doubt it would helpful for plans, even though some of the design may be of interest.
Here is the video slide show with a brief description, and a few words below it.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/gallery/img_3424-mov.7945602/
Custom chicken greenhouse
The retaining wall contains the pool and porch and has an indent to receive stairs to the lower yard. After trying to envision carrying fishing poles and chasing future grandchildren through the pool gate and down stone steps, I decided building a chicken house protected on three sides by insulated cinderblock wall with overhanging oak and hickory trees made more safety sense.
I hired landscapers to help me lay the cinderblock barrier wall for the frame, but they couldn't manage the math, so my husband and I did it ourselves. Then my husband insisted I was not going to do the heavy 2x4 treated lumber cuts alone, so hired a woodworker to create the chicken house I designed.
I bought hardware, a fancy screen door, hardware cloth, and 2x4s, set the 4x4 poles with my husband, and shared my plans with the carpenter. He talked me into greenhouse panels instead of tin roofing. It leaks in heavy rains because the pitch isn't right (we needed a high ceiling for me and didn't want to dig below the natural footer on the retaining wall), but it allows more light in for the plants.
The three rules I set were
1) No fastening into the retaining wall, no holes, no weight-bearing, nothing at all to affect the integrity of the wall because it holds up a rather large human house.
2) Hardware cloth will be sandwiched between 2 2x4s everywhere with no exceptions due to Florida forest predator pressure.
3) Not even a tiny space or gap anywhere greater than 1/2", which is the gap spacing of the hardware cloth, to keep out mice and snakes.
The 4x4s were the anchors of the structure. They were set a few inches from the wall because of the concrete footer. Too bad, so sad, not going to destroy sections of the retaining wall footer in order to set the 4x4s in a foot of concrete. I'm stubbornly cautious. With the chicken house structure being completely independent of the wall, it further protects from hurricanes and tornadoes, which on our intracoastal salt marsh arrive together historically. If the greenhouse roof panels blow off, the rest of the open-air structure should be safe in a hurricane, but who knows what a tornado may do.
We've never had flood waters reach the retaining wall, but we've seen our dock underwater, so the chickens will go into kennels in the garage under such circumstances, anyway. We just want the best chance to a) withstand a hurricane and, hopefully, a tornado and b) not cause damage to our retaining wall. The chicken house supplies zero liability to our home, in other words.
The 2x4s framing the chicken house were built onto the 4x4 pillars, abutting the wall without being fastened to it. Simple. The L-shape required a diagonal roof frame at the inside corner of the L, but the rest of the framing was straightforward.
The hardware cloth was fastened to the frame, and 2x4s were cut to fit between the 4x4 to face the interior 2x4 frame so all hardware cloth seams were sandwiched between 4" of framework. These panels were secure enough to prevent prying raccoon hands from violating the structure, and could sustain a direct hit by any animal, including our Huskies, who are supervised and fenced out by 40" decorative garden fencing staked into the ground a few feet from the chicken house.
We don't have bears, and the spiked commercial fencing around our acreage has never been penetrated by deer. The footer under the perimeter fence preventing our Huskies from digging out provides no gap for alligators to enter the acreage, either. Predator pressure here is intense, but we planned for it.
The roof is my least favorite part of the structure. I silicone caulked around the places where flashing connects it to the pavers at the top of the retaining wall, but it leaks in places, as do certain screws connecting the panels to one another. The entire roof requires more caulking occasionally because the grade isn't steep enough to shed the enormous amount of rainfall we receive.
But the Florida sun dries the natural sand floor almost immediately and the chickens stay dry regardless of leaks. They drink the leaking rainwater in the meanwhile, which isn't ideal, but they're chickens and love fresh water. Besides, a tin roof is too hot, especially in run, which receives full sun part of the day.
The greenhouse roofing allows about two dozen hanging chicken-safe plants and orchids to grow and bloom inside the chicken house and run, hence it's called the chicken greenhouse. They require occasional rinsing of chicken dust, but thrive, except for the ones the chickens decide to fly up and eat.
The painted screen door was reinforced with hardware cloth and 2x4s on the backside and hung with 4 sets of hardware, a spring-loaded barrel lock into the frame at the top, and a latch with padlock near the bottom, which I use a screw-closure D-ring to secure, raccoon-proofing the one-door entry. The frame is set on two buried (recessed chicken house area) or exposed (run) cinderblocks topped with pavers all the way around, and skirted with 2-3 feet of ground-level hardware cloth to prevent any critters from digging into the coop, including gophers and moles.
Built on a slope, the chicken house floor is natural sand contained by the cinderblocks and can be sifted and easily cleaned. The chickens never get muddy, and the chicken house has no unpleasant smell. I included a cheap chicken coop to give the flock a place to roost and hide at night while they listen to the Barred owls call to each other from the trees overhead.
At dusk, the solar lanterns come on and the chicken assume their nightly roosting order in and on top of this prefab coop set against the most interior wall. We don't need a chicken door in the open-air coop, so it's an easy way to keep chickens in subtropical NE Florida. They do as they please according to sunlight and since Crevecoeurs enjoy containment, supervised free range time is plenty for them.
The rest of their time is spent in the 200sqft+ chicken greenhouse, where they have plenty of chicken enrichment activities in the open air, an entire floor for dust bathing, even though I provide a pan of First Saturday Lime for this purpose, as well. They scratch, dig, and do their thing in a pest-free environment for most of the day, although they love digging for bugs in the leaf mold and eating greenery during their supervised free range time. After about an hour, they file back inside on their own and I lock them in again.
I toenailed 2x4s under the bottom of the frame where it meets the cinderblocks along the exterior to allow for warping and settling of the frame to prevent gaps where a snake or mouse may eventually find its way inside.
The L not protected by the cubby of the retaining wall receives full sun allowing for sunbathing, but the cubby area where they sleep and are fed and watered is in full shade. I provided shade cloth suspended over this area for extra sun protection. The thermometer never goes above about 85 degrees even in the summer in the shaded area of the coop. NE Florida weather is ideal for our Mediterranean heritage breed.
I've been meaning to write an article, but since it is a specific custom build, I doubt it would helpful for plans, even though some of the design may be of interest.
Here is the video slide show with a brief description, and a few words below it.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/gallery/img_3424-mov.7945602/
Custom chicken greenhouse
The retaining wall contains the pool and porch and has an indent to receive stairs to the lower yard. After trying to envision carrying fishing poles and chasing future grandchildren through the pool gate and down stone steps, I decided building a chicken house protected on three sides by insulated cinderblock wall with overhanging oak and hickory trees made more safety sense.
I hired landscapers to help me lay the cinderblock barrier wall for the frame, but they couldn't manage the math, so my husband and I did it ourselves. Then my husband insisted I was not going to do the heavy 2x4 treated lumber cuts alone, so hired a woodworker to create the chicken house I designed.
I bought hardware, a fancy screen door, hardware cloth, and 2x4s, set the 4x4 poles with my husband, and shared my plans with the carpenter. He talked me into greenhouse panels instead of tin roofing. It leaks in heavy rains because the pitch isn't right (we needed a high ceiling for me and didn't want to dig below the natural footer on the retaining wall), but it allows more light in for the plants.
The three rules I set were
1) No fastening into the retaining wall, no holes, no weight-bearing, nothing at all to affect the integrity of the wall because it holds up a rather large human house.
2) Hardware cloth will be sandwiched between 2 2x4s everywhere with no exceptions due to Florida forest predator pressure.
3) Not even a tiny space or gap anywhere greater than 1/2", which is the gap spacing of the hardware cloth, to keep out mice and snakes.
The 4x4s were the anchors of the structure. They were set a few inches from the wall because of the concrete footer. Too bad, so sad, not going to destroy sections of the retaining wall footer in order to set the 4x4s in a foot of concrete. I'm stubbornly cautious. With the chicken house structure being completely independent of the wall, it further protects from hurricanes and tornadoes, which on our intracoastal salt marsh arrive together historically. If the greenhouse roof panels blow off, the rest of the open-air structure should be safe in a hurricane, but who knows what a tornado may do.
We've never had flood waters reach the retaining wall, but we've seen our dock underwater, so the chickens will go into kennels in the garage under such circumstances, anyway. We just want the best chance to a) withstand a hurricane and, hopefully, a tornado and b) not cause damage to our retaining wall. The chicken house supplies zero liability to our home, in other words.
The 2x4s framing the chicken house were built onto the 4x4 pillars, abutting the wall without being fastened to it. Simple. The L-shape required a diagonal roof frame at the inside corner of the L, but the rest of the framing was straightforward.
The hardware cloth was fastened to the frame, and 2x4s were cut to fit between the 4x4 to face the interior 2x4 frame so all hardware cloth seams were sandwiched between 4" of framework. These panels were secure enough to prevent prying raccoon hands from violating the structure, and could sustain a direct hit by any animal, including our Huskies, who are supervised and fenced out by 40" decorative garden fencing staked into the ground a few feet from the chicken house.
We don't have bears, and the spiked commercial fencing around our acreage has never been penetrated by deer. The footer under the perimeter fence preventing our Huskies from digging out provides no gap for alligators to enter the acreage, either. Predator pressure here is intense, but we planned for it.
The roof is my least favorite part of the structure. I silicone caulked around the places where flashing connects it to the pavers at the top of the retaining wall, but it leaks in places, as do certain screws connecting the panels to one another. The entire roof requires more caulking occasionally because the grade isn't steep enough to shed the enormous amount of rainfall we receive.
But the Florida sun dries the natural sand floor almost immediately and the chickens stay dry regardless of leaks. They drink the leaking rainwater in the meanwhile, which isn't ideal, but they're chickens and love fresh water. Besides, a tin roof is too hot, especially in run, which receives full sun part of the day.
The greenhouse roofing allows about two dozen hanging chicken-safe plants and orchids to grow and bloom inside the chicken house and run, hence it's called the chicken greenhouse. They require occasional rinsing of chicken dust, but thrive, except for the ones the chickens decide to fly up and eat.
The painted screen door was reinforced with hardware cloth and 2x4s on the backside and hung with 4 sets of hardware, a spring-loaded barrel lock into the frame at the top, and a latch with padlock near the bottom, which I use a screw-closure D-ring to secure, raccoon-proofing the one-door entry. The frame is set on two buried (recessed chicken house area) or exposed (run) cinderblocks topped with pavers all the way around, and skirted with 2-3 feet of ground-level hardware cloth to prevent any critters from digging into the coop, including gophers and moles.
Built on a slope, the chicken house floor is natural sand contained by the cinderblocks and can be sifted and easily cleaned. The chickens never get muddy, and the chicken house has no unpleasant smell. I included a cheap chicken coop to give the flock a place to roost and hide at night while they listen to the Barred owls call to each other from the trees overhead.
At dusk, the solar lanterns come on and the chicken assume their nightly roosting order in and on top of this prefab coop set against the most interior wall. We don't need a chicken door in the open-air coop, so it's an easy way to keep chickens in subtropical NE Florida. They do as they please according to sunlight and since Crevecoeurs enjoy containment, supervised free range time is plenty for them.
The rest of their time is spent in the 200sqft+ chicken greenhouse, where they have plenty of chicken enrichment activities in the open air, an entire floor for dust bathing, even though I provide a pan of First Saturday Lime for this purpose, as well. They scratch, dig, and do their thing in a pest-free environment for most of the day, although they love digging for bugs in the leaf mold and eating greenery during their supervised free range time. After about an hour, they file back inside on their own and I lock them in again.
I toenailed 2x4s under the bottom of the frame where it meets the cinderblocks along the exterior to allow for warping and settling of the frame to prevent gaps where a snake or mouse may eventually find its way inside.
The L not protected by the cubby of the retaining wall receives full sun allowing for sunbathing, but the cubby area where they sleep and are fed and watered is in full shade. I provided shade cloth suspended over this area for extra sun protection. The thermometer never goes above about 85 degrees even in the summer in the shaded area of the coop. NE Florida weather is ideal for our Mediterranean heritage breed.
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it doesn't smell, thank goodness, or I may have been in the doghouse.
