Easy Care Coop Or Built To Make It Easy Enough For Kids To Help Coop

We are new hobby farm owners who have no idea what we are doing! I do all the research...husband does all the "doing" Our property came with an old building attached to a silo that had a garage door installed at some point. It was previously used as a tack room and had about 2 feet of some kind of compacted sand (that was like cement) on the floor. We started with clearing that out. Then we cut approx. 1/3 off the bottom all the way around to get rid of some rotted barn wood that had been scratched and chewed thru by some "visitors". Then we framed it in and added all the "extras". Hubby built the feeder tubes & water lines. The building doesn't have water access so we got a big tank and put it on a platform (gravity aided pressure). He installed a spigot thru the wall right above the tank and a hose on the outside of the building. When it is time to fill the tank... just run the hose on the outside over to the barn and hook it to the well pump! The hose coming off the water tank has a 4 way splitter. DH ran one line to the "storage area" of the coop so we have access for whatever else we need. We can fill the feed tubes from the outside. The meat bird area has feeders that are on pullys so they can be raised at night (we heard that if they have access 24/7 they can expode their insides?). Sliding door for egg collection. We are finishing up the enclosed run which will be attached on the other side of the garage door. Just open it up however big, depending on the weather, and they are outside. The garage door opener works from inside our house...yes!! Then there will be a wide gate opening in the run that will be big enough for our little tractor to fit thru because, wait for it...here comes the best part...cleaning!!! Open the gate, open the garage door. Drive tractor in, scoop poop/litter with front loader, reverse. Dump in compost pile. Done.


This is a view from when you walk in the door. There is a storage area to the right. There are the feeding tubes and the sliding doors that access the back of the nesting boxes. Immediately to the left is a swinging door that goes to the meat chicken area.





Inside the meat chicken area (currently being used for kittens). Water tank attached to nipple waterers (one line goes thru the wall to supply the layers water line on the other side). The white thing is going to be for their "roost". It will just sit on the ground. It is a composite...so no rotting wood.





Getting ready to move the ladies to their new home!


They all seem very happy with their new set up! My husband did have help from a contractor part time...(he was a CFO in a former life, last year), but thru the whole process he has learned so much. He spent SOO much time thinking things thru. I would really like to believe that it is for my sake, but it is really for his. I still work full-time so he ends up doing all of the grunt work around the farm! I will post more pics of the run in a couple days when it is complete.