Hello, I am new to the forum and just created my 1st coop. I created a video to show you all, and perhaps get some other ideas or suggestions. What do you all think ?? Any improvements or ideas are welcome!!



I plan to get chickens soon, strictly egg layers! I get attached and cant kill any of my animals to feed me.

So tell me what you think.

We used a combination of a ready made hen house I bought off Craigslist and coop/run plans that I bought online to build this home for our girls. They also have a larger "day run" that is under shade trees and more open.

Hey! Welcome to our forum:) So I watched the whole video and you thought of mostly everything! Those chickens are going to be some happy campers fo show!

Where your water pipe runs through the hardware cloth where your brooder is under the nest boxes there is a small gap. I can just see mice and rats getting in there by running on the pipe:( Cover that hole.

If it gets cold enough where you live I would suggest using a fish tank heater to make sure the water does not freeze:) - Something like this? - This one will heat up to 75gal and the temp is adjustable.

Lastly, I do not know if this will help you but I made a PVC pipe feeder for my girls and it works great! Check it out:

That is a great looking coop MammaLitts!!

I see a couple of things I can coment on

First by the inside water nipples put a peice of tin or something water proof behind the nipples any water splashing or leaking can delaminate the OSB board you have there or water standing on the floor

Second put a vent hole in the water tank so as the water is drawn down air can replace it in the tank that plug you have take the cap off and replace it with a clean peice of a green scrubber pad air can in but not buggies paint the tank so no light gets in tomstart algee growth due to sunlight getting to water

I think You be happer with a outside fill pipe rather than dragging you inside the coop and getting stuff wet inside like feed or shaveings

How are you going to clean up the poop from inside ?

Nice little coop there MammaLitts, I was thinking about doing rocks /bolders like that as well around our run and coop, but figured if I did pine landscaping with plants, the plants can grow into the fence and the girls have more greens to eat and then with the pine bedding, bugs will be more willing to crawl into the run and feed the girls. Do you have mesh or some sort of barrier under those rocks, or do you use just the rocks as the barriers?

HFI_Matt, I've seen your video before and have actually considered that method, how much feed are they able to kick out still with that set up? Thanks for the tips, I will definitely close that hole up. I had noticed it before but figured that since the hole on the other side was snug (cut out better) that it wouldn't had been much of an issue... but yes, now that you mention it, I will close it off. I didnt think of mice, I was more thinking of snakes! LOL They can still get though the chicken door during the day.

SoCalDeere, Good idea about the splashing of the water on the walls. I will use the stuff I have on the floor to cover that back wall as you suggested. As for the watering jug... it wont be sitting out side, the container will be sitting inside the coop area where there won't be any direct sunlight able to hit it unless we rip the roof off the coop! LOL As for placing the waterier outside, we considered the location before placing it... I live in Southern Indiana, we have mild and harsh winters.... so keeping that in mind, I decided to place the container inside (the people area, not the coop/chicken area) to help keep it cool in the summer and warm during the winter (Going to use Matt's idea about the fish tank heater - I been trying to figure out how I was going to keep the water from freezing - thanks Matt). I didn't want to have to stand in the rain, sleet or snow to get the girls taken care of so that was the reasoning for the "people" section of the coop. Also the reason I made that gadget for the hose when we go to fill the water. So far we have had very little to no slashing thus far and with all the testing I have done with it (flushing the system and refilling).

As far as cleaning, I will have a rake, shovel, rubber gloves to clean the poop from the coop....right now I just don't have anything down cause I didn't want to put it down until we're about to bring the girls home. I am leaning towards either sand or shavings.

I would shugjest shaveings cause its a start on composting and it will asorborb the moisture in the droppings if you have leaves in the fall put them in a trash can stick a weed whacker in it and chop the leaves to reduce them in size and use that as homemade shaveings and I surposed you could use grass clipping as shaveings before hauling ether of them to a compost pile

That is a neat idea SoCalDeere - I will have to consider that one, I will most defiantly have PLENTY of leaves and grass clippings - probably enough to last me YEARS! LOL

Hard Wire Mesh fixed that allows the PVC tube for the watering nipples:

Side 1:


Side 2:




"Splash Guard" for the watering system in the coop:



Nesting Boxes holes fixed:

Top Box:


Bottom Box:


Outside of the boxes:




Watering Jug passed its leak test & is now istalled:





AND just for fun... my furbabies wouldn't listen to me, and kept running threw the corn field (breaking stalks) so as I timeout and a test to the fence... they got placed into the run.... if they can't get out when they would really WANT to... then they aren't going to get in when we have hens in there

O cool:) My girls do not kick a lot out because of the way I have it in the coop. They have to reach a bit for it because it is off the ground and that will also help with keeping rats out of it as well. The more they have to work for it the more they will make sure to eat it all. You can also just put round holes so they can fit there heads in the pipe.

I see you fixes issues so you are awesome my friend! I'm off to church now but I am sure we will be talking more and more:)

Matt