The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Poultry & Waterfowl => Topic started by: congo181 on February 10, 2015, 11:03:55 am
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Morning all.
After previous help on coops I decided to build my own and am well underway.
Can someone help me with some dimensions of the following please:
Pop Hole size.
Ramp to pop hole width and maximum slope.
Nest Box size (per compartment)
Roost pole size
Roost pole height from floor
Relationship between roost and nest boxes. I am lead to believe that the roosts should be higher?
The coop I am building is pretty large, approximately 2m x 1m x 1m plus a 45' pitched roof from corrugated tin on top. It also sits on 500m legs.
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On ours, the pop holes are about 12"x12'. Our popholes are at ground level but we have internal ladders that go up to the perches - these are about 6" wide and at quite a steep angle and the hens manage fine.
The nest boxes are about 12" x 12" as well;the roost poles are 2" x 2" square with the corners shaved off for comfort. The roost poles should be higher than the nest boxes but not that high that they bump their heads - ours are probably too high at 2 1/2 feet, hence the ladder for getting up and down.
Others will have other information but that's what ours are like and they seem to work pretty well.
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It also depends on the breed of chicken you're keeping. I got some coops from Wells (before he took everybody's money and ran off) and they're a lovely size but the perches are about 18in up with only about 12in clearance under the roof and my Orps don't touch them. They'd rather huddle in a corner that leap that high only to bump their heads!
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Thanks both for the reply.
I have cut the pop hole at 14" x 12" which seems a good compromise.
I have this afternoon made the roosting trays, with 2" square roost bars as suggested by Rosemary.
Attached picture shows them in-situ - perhaps they are too high then? What do you think?
I want to just have non-fussy layers, not bantams. I was thinking Ambers, Rhodes, maybe Legbars.
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about a foot and half openings nest boxes 6 in a row 12 hens in this pen and have 4 pens in total .
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Thanks again everyone.
I'll go with somewhere between 12x12 and 12x18 then.
Got the roof on today - suddenly starting to look like a coop!