The seven chicks are rapidly outgrowing their grapefruit box and soon it will be time to move them to the great outdoors. Our current playhouse coop design is 2 feet x 4 feet, enough for 3-4 adult hens. My expansion adds another 16 square feet for a total of 24 square feet of indoor floor space and over 72 cubic feet of space, enough to comfortably house our flock of nine.
Two weekends ago I spent the better part of a day cutting and assembling the four sides to my chicken coop expansion project. With the four sides assembled I was able to spend this past Saturday (an absolutely perfect day) attaching the expansion to the existing coop. Time was my enemy as I needed to have the project attached, roofed and enclosed by the end of the day so our hens could safely go to roost that evening.
I began by attaching the roof members. This was much simpler to do before the the two boxes were joined. Phyllis and I then carried the expansion to it’s new location where I worked the ground to ensure that it was level with the existing structure. I removed the front window panel from the old box and butted the new box up against it and screwed the two units together. Next I cut the plywood panel for the top of the coop box. Since this had to slide in from the top it had to be done before the roof went on. After that came the roof, a good thing because it poured rain Saturday night. I discovered that the aluminum flashing I bought for the ridge was narrower than that used on the existing coop. This is one aspect of the expansion that I’ll have to revisit once the coop is complete.
With the roof in place I attached hardware cloth around the base. The final step for the day was to install the floor of the coop. This had to be done in two pieces in order to get them through the the front opening. Before I did that, however, I had to install a couple floor joists to support the four foot span of plywood. As a final step for the day I reattached the front window panel to the new box. Phew, 1o hours from start to finish.
Next weekend I’ll add the trim, cut out openings for the nest box hatch and add a door on the back side that leads out to the run. Phyllis is in charge of building the nest box and painting.
Your chicken coop addition looks great.
My daughter and son-in-law were wondering why the coup is built so high up off the
ground. We will probably all feel dumb when you answer, but we can’t stand the
suspense. LOL. We all love chickens and are interested in having our own someday.
Love your site. Keep up the good work.
Our original coop design is Dennis Harrison-Noonan’s playhouse coop and the addition is my design. The design incorporates the enclosed run and coop into a single structure. By raising the coop off the ground you can recapture the space underneath. You see a lot of arcs that use this same design, coop on top, run below. It also keeps it above the snow so we don’t have to dig out in winter. One final benefit is that we don’t have to bend over to clean it out.
Thanks for posting.
– John