Are you thinking about building a large artistic chicken coop for your next flock of chickens? In this post, we discuss the main points that went into designing and building our chicken coop.
After a full year of contemplating adding chickens to our homestead, we finally put the order in. So now we had to seriously begin thinking about a convenient spot in the yard, not too far from the main house. It would need to offer the chickens room and shade and ventilation.
We bought the book “How to Build Chicken Coops” by Samantha and Daniel Johnson to give us the basics since we had no idea the details that chickens required. And we perused the internet for different coop styles and how to figure the size we were going to need.
ARTISTIC CHICKEN COOP BASICS
In Mother Earth News, Jennifer Poindexter points out that going bigger than what you think you will need gives you the ability to add to your flock without having to build a new coop. That idea sounded realistic so we incorporated it.
We also learnt that size is relative. It all depends on whether they will be cooped up a lot, whether they will have an enclosed run added onto the coop or whether they will be permitted to run freely.
Being cooped up all the time requires the most space per bird be given and the largest coop size. In the planning stages we saw the chickens moving between their coop and a sizeable run area where they could be assured protection from predators including dogs.
We knew the design of the chicken coop should be simple and rustic. We wanted it to be a creative expression working through us. So when the chicks were about five weeks old the building of the chicken coop began.
I would not recommend waiting to build the chicken coop like we did. We had thought in our heads that this simple project would only take a couple of weeks since Tom is an experienced woodworker. Well, we were in for a big surprise.
We found out that simple did not mean easy or quickly and that life can enter without prior notice. Our chicken coop took nearly eight weeks to build and was very similar to building a small house.
The grade of the land was also a big factor in the initial stages of preparing the ground for the building process. Scribing the wood abutting to the natural wood logs and all of the details took an immense amount of added effort and work. However, it is the small details and overall look that gives this particular chicken coop it’s simple and rustic with modern touches feel.
Since the chickens were rapidly outgrowing their basement abode, we gave them a glimpse of the big outdoors as they patiently waited the finishing of their new home. During the daytime we put them in an old dog cage and attached wire fencing around it to give them a place for protection and a place to run and taste the sweet grass. As the sun moved around the yard, so too did their moveable chicken yard and oh how they loved it!
When the chickens were eight weeks old they were officially moved out of the basement and into their unfinished but livable coop. I have read that chickens have a hard time transitioning from one living place to another easily becoming confused and we took that into consideration.
Once they officially moved in, we kept them on lock down in the coop for a couple of days. This is supposed to readjust them to their new dwelling so that when/if they are out they will instinctively know that they are to return home at dusk.
Once we thought they were ready, we again used the dog cage during the daytime combined with the fence around it. But they were ready to explore an even larger space and would now sometimes fly out of their enclosure.
With the assurance of what a neighbor told us she does, we decided to see how the chickens would do with free ranging. They began running and jumping with joy and returned back home each evening.
After an additional four weeks we can say the chicken chalet is complete; a place to sleep and a place to play.