Chicken Coop Tour

A tour of our chicken coop and run. We talk about some of the time saving features of the coop and about the defensive features to keep the chickens safe. A detailed blog post can be found at: http://bearlyhomesteading.blogspot.co...

The coop is 4' X 12' and is large enough to house our flock during the winter months without them getting cabin fever. We use a plastic dog kennel flooring from Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...
This flooring is great for our coop! It allows easy cleaning and lots of ventilation. Since it can be screwed down, we don't have to worry about predators being able to lift it up if they get into the run. We designed the coop to be mostly maintained from outside the run:
Door operation
Collection of eggs from the laying boxes
Turning on/off of interior lighting
Filling of feed (future addition)
Filling of water (future addition)

The coop and run also have a number of defensive features to keep predators out. The entire run, including the top, is enclosed with 2" x 4" welded wire fencing. Seams in the fencing are stitched together with galvanized wire. The bottom 4 feet of the fencing is covered in 1/2" hardware cloth. Around the outside of the run, we have placed welded wire fencing along the ground extending 4 feet out from the coop. We placed rocks on top of this fencing and have allowed the grass to grow up through it to hold it down. The idea is that digging animals will give up before they reach the edge 4 feet out. We also have rocks buried under the gate so animals cannot burrow under. Almost a year in and nothing has gotten in yet.

When we shot this video a week ago, our 7 chickens were laying 3 eggs a day. Recently they have been up to 5 eggs each day. The girls are happy, healthy, and doing great!

Music in this video by Jason Shaw and is used by permission under the Attribution 3.0 United States license
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...