Chicken Coop 3.0 urban-Tacoma

I forgot to measure the total height of the chicken door sliders PLUS the height of the opener box. I had to mount the box sideways to the left of the door, and install a small pulley for the lifting string to go over. Works like a champ. Chicken door opener from eBay. It’s $170 including aluminum door and sliders at the time of this writing. The seller of the chicken door got back to me promptly with my sideways chicken door opening questions: so good feedback there.

opener and door

There are certainly plenty of predators around Tacoma. Hawks, raccoons and cats oh my. My plan here is to elevate the coop about 3-5ft off the ground with a little ramp for the chickens to use in the mornings and evenings. The floor of the coop will be 1/2in hardware cloth (galvanized wire fence with 1/2in square holes), and the automatic door. That should keep everyone pretty much as safe as they can be.

You can see the nesting boxes off the back, door opener, coop supports, and ramp down to the ground. Like a tree house, the coop will surround an existing fence post.

There will be a roosting pole slightly off the ground in the coop. I think with the floor being permeable, and the coop off the ground, it will give the birds the feeling of roosting up off the ground even though they may only need to hope up a few inches to get to the pole. The back wall of the nesting boxes will have a simple latch and hinge to get eggs, and occasional clean out.

The corrugated roof sections will be slightly overlapping at the peak with one higher than the other. I’m going to make one of those roof panels removable for clean outs. Or I could make the side wall removable instead. We’ll see.

door opener not installed yet

Final construction. The nesting box is inside the main box. The ends are exactly 24in x 24in. The slides for the chicken door are also 24in, I wish I would’ve made the whole coop more like 24in x 30in. You can see I ran the a-symmetrical roof a little ways over each side to help in keeping water off. I also did not mount the coop with the 4×4 right in the middle. I bolted two 4×4 chunks next to each other, then bolted that side of the coop to them. On the far side from there, there are two 2x4s that support the far corners. With some scrap, I made some L-shaped 2in x 2in corners, and painted them white separately from the rest of the coop. It’s important to paint this thing! It will really add to the lifespan of the coop over time with the inevitable moisture from weather and chicken vents.

Whole picture album google photos