Little Bitty City Pretty

Years ago when we decided to get our first backyard chickens, and we knew we would need a safe and sturdy coop for our new feathered friends to make a home. Our budget for the coop was around a thousand dollars, so we knew we couldn’t have gone too big. I found the plans for our coop on Pinterest and thought, “this is perfect for our needs”. Well, it turns out, it’s not as awesome as we once thought it was.

We needed a coop in our budget, that is safe and sturdy, this coop checked all those boxes. So, we got the coop built and ready to go. I knew I wanted to use sand in warmer weather, because it’s so easy to clean and still leaves sand behind for more use, unlike when we use wood chips, once you need to clean the coop it’s all mixed with chicken poo, so it all has to go. that brings me to my first complaint… the door to this coop is as big as it can get, unfortunately it is cramped for us when we are cleaning. There isn’t a lot of room for scooping out the old sand or chips and putting in the new. So, we would definitely like a bigger doorway.

Once we are in the coop, we aren’t able to stand up and we have to watch out for the ceiling, otherwise we will get a bump on our noggin. Imagine having a short handle shovel in a cramped space trying to clean up poo from almost every square foot, it’s constantly bending to protect your head, pretty much spinning in one spot to clean because there’s just no room to move around. It gets very uncomfortable. So, we would like a taller, more spacious coop for our comfort.

We have almost all heard or seen reels from the backyard chickens people saying “plan for more chickens, because you’re definitely going to be getting more”, well I wasn’t planning to get more chickens while we are still in this home, but it’s happened… two years in a row. Our coop has five laying boxes and while that’s still fine, the area where we can put the roosts is very limited and with nine hens now, it’s about at capacity. We didn’t take into account that at some point, older chickens don’t lay as often and more chickens will need to be brought in (if you’re not into culling unproductive hens like we are). So, a more spacious coop is needed to house all our chickens, young and old.

A huge plus for our coop is the external laying box door. Not having to crawl in and out of our little coop to get the eggs is such a great idea. Even when we build a bigger coop, it’s a feature that will carry to the next. Even our children are able to go out to fetch the eggs without having to worry about getting dirty crawling through the small door and dealing with the low ceiling.

Lastly, the heat in these coops gets hot. Even with the window that opens with a screen on one side and the two vents on the other other side (under the roof), it’s still not enough. We need to have a close-able vent on the roof where the heat can escape easily, but keeps the water and the critters out. That’s a big one. We live in the south where it gets hot and humid.. enclosed spaces for animals require good ventilation. So that’s going to be an important upgrade for our feather babies.

If we knew then what we know now, we would have saved a little more and built an 8X10 shed (Or something along those lines). More space to move around not only for us but for the chickens, a full size doorway to easily bring in and out supplies and waste, better ventilation, and more space for roosting.

I hope this has been helpful to anyone out there thinking of their first coop, or maybe I’ve given ideas for your current coop… If you have any coop recommendations or ideas, I would love to hear them!