Last week saw the completion of the chicken coop foundation (see Building the Chicken Coop Foundation). Of course, the logical next stop is to add some walls to the foundation. As with the foundation, we built the walls in place for the most part and then carried them to the chicken coop. Kevin decided to build the only wall with a window first, the front wall. Adding a window to the front wall, the one that faces south, will help heat the chicken coop in the winter because the sun will be able to shine on the inside almost all day long. During the summer months, the window will allow the breeze that comes up from our valley to move air around on the inside of the chicken coop.
In this picture, Kevin and Cody are just finishing up on the braces to support the wall during the building process. I’m off the shot doing some work on the next wall to go up.
The second wall faces toward the east and it contains the door the chickens will use to access their run outside of the coop. We did this wall next to provide a square corner on which to build the rest of the coop structure.
We’ll use a piece of plywood to close in the right side of the second wall later. The most important part now is to get the structure in place. The door you see simply slides up to let the chickens out. At night we’ll close the door to keep predators out. You can’t see it easily in the picture, but there is a little latch that holds the door up. We can swing the latch to keep the door closed as well.
The third wall to go up is on the north side. It will eventually have a window in it near the top to provide ventilation in summer. This wind will blow straight through the coop to keep things cool. The trees from the woods will provide shade during the summer months as well.
The fourth wall, the one facing west, contains the coop door. After this wall is added, we’ll take out the bracing from inside of the coop since all of the walls are now supporting each other.
The door is simply an old door from a house. Eventually, the door will be double hung. The screen door will go on the inside of the coop to keep the chickens from simply running out through it during the summer months when the main door will be kept open during the day to provide ventilation.
The walls are bolted into the floor and into each other at this point, so we have a solid framework for the roof. That’s what I’ll talk about next week. In the meantime, let me know if you have any questions at [email protected].