Found a hen in the street "Backyard Chicken"

[Irving]

Okay, so a few years later and now I've jumped in with both feet. We have five chickens and two ducks. One of the chickens is a rooster that I don't plan on keeping, but I do want to see him full grown.
Of course I was super excited to build my own coop. I created a general idea, but didn't go off of any plans. Because of all the challenges that created, we can skip any DIY build photos. Here is the pretty much finished coop. All it really needs now is some automation of the door, and a pond heater to keep the water from freezing in the winter. I've got a ton of pictures, but I'm not going to photo dump them all unless someone has a specific question about something.

Here are my original plans.







For ventilation, the entire top breathes. I lined it all with screen to keep wasps out.


The sides have screen (replacing with metal hardware cloth) and can be left open probably 9 months out of the year.


The wall panels are held out from the frame of the structure so even when they are on, they still breath on both sides.

[Irving]

I need to add windows to the front doors. Perhaps a curtain for the nesting boxes. I'd like as many solar panels on the roof as possible so this can double as a solar generator as well. The storage compartment above the coop can hold all the electronics and batteries, but since batteries are heavy, I'll probably put them on the bottom, raised up a bit in case of standing water.

Eventually I'll build a fence around the concrete just to keep the birds (mostly the ducks) from crapping all over the patio.

[CS1983]

Well ain'tchu fancy.

Is the color something you just liked/had around or does it have a calming effect on chickens or something?

[Irving]

The blue and white is just what I picked out in the spray paint aisle of Home Depot. The yellow on the inside is the brightest color I could find at Habitat for Humanity where all gallons of paint are only $10.

[CS1983]

Do your chickens hunt mice?

[Irving]

Chickens in general will eat mice. I'm learning that mine are still pretty young and haven't turned into full blown killers yet. For example, I can toss a worm/beetle/spider/earwig/etc to them, and they might peck it around a little bit, but don't gobble it down. Whereas the ducks will be all over anything that moves. They are getting more bold and curious about stuff lately and I've seen them catch bugs that happen to be around. So yes, I think they will, but not yet.

I just found out that two of them aren't even what I was told they were, well all of them actually depending on how specific you get about breeds. Makes sense though since there are so many different variations of chickens.

[CS1983]

That'll be nice for bug and pest control.

Once we move, chickens will be the first "we're in the country now!" thing we do.

[Irving]

You've got an HOA now right?

Do research before you dive in. I saw a store bought coop the other day where the coop and the run combined were about the size of my coop alone. I went to snap a picture of it and there were 9 or 10 birds in there! I suspect that person is going to have a lot of fighting issues and dead grass in a hurry.

[CS1983]

Yes, currently HOA. Will definitely do research before diving in.

[Irving]

I didn't expand much since I'm on my phone but where I was going with that story is that store bought coops say how many the coop is built for, and they use figures that are from chicken farms that raise birds in cages. So if a coup says it's for 4-6 birds, you can bet that even 2-3 will be tight. I read some long article about how they arrive at those numbers, but basically a factory bird lives in a cage that is like .75 SQ/ft, and a "free range" bird isn't in a cage, but only has something like 1.5 SQ/ft of space per bird in the building and may never actually ever go outside. So treat the numbers on store bought coops like buying a tent.