[Justin]

For the past 3 years, we've had our 7 hens in a Green Frog Designs coop. It's been very good but I'm thinking of upsizing, as we may want to go up to 10-20 hens over the next few years, and making something I can stand inside to ease cleaning. I already have a small sheltered area for the dust bath and feeder and figured I'd combine them.

My current idea looks like the plan below. The left side is open fronted and has room for the dust bath, straw and sawdust dustbins and there'd be shelf space for a couple of bags of feed and the bits for cleaning everything. The pop hole would open into this area too giving bad weather shelter for the girls.

The coop is tall enough for me to stand in. The roosts would be a frame that folds up against the back wall so I can clean under it easily. The floor would be covered in an offcut of lino to make sweeping up easy and I can sweep it all out of the door into a wheelbarrow to take to the compost heap.

There'd be mesh covered ventilation windows and the whole thing would be inside our large fenced run/fruit cage, though the hens can walk out of a door and up to the orchard where they spend their days free ranging. Our current coop has an automatic opening and I'd put one on this coop too.

The nest boxes will be the plastic rollaway ones to make cleanup nice and simple, there's probably room for three rather than the two I've sketched in.

Anything else folks can suggest that would be a good idea to add in the design stage? I have a load of metal roofing panels which I thought I'd built it from, onto a wooden framework. With good ventilation I didn't think it would be any hotter or colder than a wooden shed. I could use metal for the outside and line the inside in osb or similar but was trying to stay away from wood as much as possible to make cleaning and mite treatment as easy as possible.

Oh and there's a mains tap I'll be extending over to be by the coop for easy clean out too.

[Perris]

onduline panels wouldn't heat up/freeze like metal panels, so might be better for the roof if not the walls (not sure how predator proof they might be).

[chrismahon]

You'll need a lot more than two nest boxes Justin. For me cross ventilation is vital with the ability to partially close the vent on the windward side. Also the perches need to be lift out- red mite are inevitable and may arrive with the chickens unless you are hatching your own. Condensation with metal will be a problem. Wooden coops (not plywood) breathe.


Three of our coops are 1.8m x 1.2m and take 8 to 10 hens so I don't think your design would take 20?

[Womble]

I've been thinking along similar lines Justin, and offer the folowing:


1) I'd definitely have an automatic door opener / closer.
2) I'd have a 'green roof'. Just because, really.
3) We currently have a permanent tray under our perches, at waist height, and then a trap door cut into the side of the coop. I'd like to change this to have lift up (hinged) perches, and then trap doors to left and right, leading straight into compost heaps. That way you could scoot droppings to the left until that bin was full, and then switch to the right hand one. We find that the droppings break down quite quickly, so by the time bin B is full, bin A will be ready to move to somewhere else anyway.
4) No-stoop nestboxes are a must, accessed from the outside. Then take measures to discourage hens from laying anywhere else.
5) I'd have internal lighting linked to the door opener / closer, timed to automatically adjust to a 14 hour day length in total. Actually we already have this, and it definitely prolongs the laying season. Just be careful not to overcrowd the coop, since they'll be awake in there during the winter, rather than just using at sleeping quarters.

[Anke]

Our hens have a 50m long electric poultry netting round their house for a run, we use simple plastic storage boxes (with a hinged OSB on top, sitting on a downward angle to discourage the hens sitting on it) with the front cut out as nest boxes. All our hen houses (wooden construction, perches etc) get treated (about once a year when empty for a while) with Creosote (the proper stuff from fencing supplies) and we have not seen red mite in years. Plastic nest boxes can be washed out easily in case of broken eggs.


I wouldn't use metal as roofing material for the reasons others have said - we have onduline.

[Justin]

Thanks for the replies, some good options to consider.

our current green egg house is supposedly good for 10-11 hens and currently houses 6. Of the 4 next boxes, they only use one to lay eggs, two they ignore and one of the hens stubbornly keeps using one to sleep in.

The house is only for sleeping, they all free range during the day.

I'll can the idea of using the metal roofing all round. Might look at the plastic 'plywood' that mole valley now sell, though on my neighbours trailer bed, it's warped in the recent heat, so might re-think that