Towards the end of last year, we had some major storms hit and did some damage to our well used coops that we have for our flock. We also added more ducks and 2 geese all of whom had an impossible time getting into and out of said old coop. With all of these reason adding up, we decided it was time to rebuild... Which gave me the chance to redesign and expand and change things. SO, I started with Pintrest "shopping" for ideas and then decided nothing quite fit what I wanted. I knew I needed it to be easy to build (lean to type structure came to mind), easy to clean (full sized doors and large open space), material smart (our budget was limited), and super functional (roosting bars, roll away nesting boxes and wheelchair accessible for when I am away). Bring on a ruler and paper! I hand designed (and over designed as we found out) our new coop. Enlisted friends and agriculture club members and we got to work. Finding time to meet everyone's schedules proved to be more difficult then anything else but a few weekends later and we had our frame together... and it was WAY taller than was smart for the winds that we have... time to go back to the drawing board. Redesigning and recutting commenced!
So spent another weekend deconstructing and altering the frame work then added sides and started working on redesigning the ends as the pieces we had cut previously not longer would work. We tried patchwork but it wasn't working...
And the whole left for the outside collection egg doors wasn't the correct size so that had to be taken off again... because top nest box collection drop would be higher than the space that was currently open.
And because the door had to be 36 inches across for wheelchair access, the frame for the door then was offset from the middle of the structure because as it was my first time designing a building... I didn't take into account the width of the frame itself. After MUCH fixing and cutting on the fly... we managed to solve the flock end of the coop and the egg doors, and the people end of the coop. I also managed to build the roll away next boxes all by myself(I don't have a lot of confidence in working with power tools and this was an expensive venture so I was scared of messing up-so this was a huge deal for me)! We installed battery operated push lights as well.
This coop is an amazing accomplishment in the expansion of the farm. I'm super proud to have designed and worked so hard on it.
PS. The nest boxes work!!!! Our hens have just started using them and the eggs do indeed roll to the drop baskets in the back... Well, assuming they actually lay IN the boxes instead of on top. lol Click through the slideshow to see what I'm talking about
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