Shelter conversion possible?

[EllBee]

Hi there,

I have recently moved into a new house and was looking at having some back yard chickens for the first time. I have this shelter in my backyard and was wondering if my idea for it was crazy or viable? I live in south east queensland in Australia, so its a warm climate, and I would be looking at 5 chickens - these ladies would be allowed to free range for at least an hour or two every day.

I have attached photos of the shelter- I was wondering if it would be possible to convert this into a little hen house and chicken run? (Its around 2.2metres by 2.2 metres under the roof). I was hoping to make the whole concrete floor a deep litter system (the roof needs weatherproofing as shown by the algae on the concrete), have an open run and just a closed chicken coop in the corner? My thoughts were that I would need to build up a little wooden edge around the base (6 inches high? 12 inches high?), put a little fence around it for a run, fill the whole lot with deep litter and put a house for them in the corner to roost in at night? I have never built anything before at all so im trying to keep it as simple as possible. Is it okay to just keep the house on top of the whole deep litter, or should it be raised?

Thank you in advance for any advice that you can give - I might be way off base, haha.

 

[rosemarythyme]

Probably a little tight for 5, can you expand some of the run space beyond the covered area? A few hours of free ranging doesn't make up for the time they spend locked up. In a hotter climate you'd want to consider an open air coop and run, so this certainly could be the start of the coop portion of such a set up. Also deep litter optimally needs ground contact, so not sure if you'd get the same composting results from the concrete pad.