There are many ways to design a coop that’s easy to keep clean. To anyone building a coop from scratch, if you can afford the increased investment, I highly recommend metal roofing panels over plastic.Ģ. The darker coop helps the hens sleep in a bit in the summer, and the metal is far stronger and more durable. We replaced the plastic panels on the coop with cute red metal ones, which solved both of our problems. We tried to “repair” the panel-end with duct tape to get us through the season (who wants to replace roofing panels in the winter?) but by the time the dry weather of summer rolled around, the interior of the coop had suffered water damage. One unfortunate hit from a mid-sized branch was all it took for the edge of one of the plastic panels to shatter. We are located in an area with quite a few trees and typical Pacific Northwest autumn windstorms. Second, within just a few years, UV exposure had weakened the plastic so much that it began to embrittle. Chickens wake up with the sun, and in the summer, having the hens lose their minds in solar-powered excitement at 5 AM was irritating. At the solstice, day length is something like 16 hours, with another 3 hours or so of “not actually totally dark” book-ending proper sunrise and sunset. While this let in a lot of glorious light, making the coop feel spacious and open, there were some real drawbacks.įirst, in the summer in my town, days are very long. When we initially built the coop based on slightly modified plans from The Garden Coop, we installed clear plastic roofing panels. Here are the features, tweaks, remodels, and systems that I love about our current poultry housing solution. Cleaning and maintenance is simple, the birds are secure, and we even managed to squeeze a water feature in for the ducks. My mixed flock of hens and ducks is co-housed in a nice, spacious coop and mostly contained to a nice spacious run. Which brings us, more or less, to the current set up. Small artificial ponds simply cannot sustain ducks. There was a series of ponds – built with love, excitement and all natural water-sealing clay, they were filled back in with grumbling chagrin and no small amount of cursing. Ducks added their own significant complications: all mallard-derived ducks are terribly messy and in love with water of all kinds, but drakes (male ducks) are also horrifically ungentlemanly.įirst we kept our duck flock in a separate pen and allowed free ranging, but predators and poop (oh the poop!) eventually convinced us that containment was a better plan. Backyard free-ranging was tried (it really was!) but ultimately rejected in favor of a more conventional coop-and-run set-up. First we went from a tiny, unworkable coop for two birds to a spacious, well-designed, and attractive coop that can comfortably house 8 to 12 hens.Įxperience drove multiple experiments to increase the efficiency and cleanliness of the coop. My poultry’s housing has evolved over the years.
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