Futon to Coop

A Little More Re-purposing:

So anyway, we've got a baby on the way (our first) and the little cottage is going to get a bit fuller; some extreme spring cleaning was required and first up against the wall our old futon which would look 'out of place' in the nursery.

And we want more chickens. These things are not related...

Some time ago (a few months), ebay furnished us with a new shed to put in the chicken pen. This turned into a bit of a saga: while only a small shed, we did try to squeeze it inside a Ford Fiesta (a car at the small end of small to those people in places that may not have them) to get it home. It fulfilled a very specific design requirement however, having double doors on the long side, meaning we could eventually section it in half to give us one side coop and the other to hold the barrel of food, cleaning things, and other chicken based sundries.

Needless to say it has taken us quite some time to actually get round to doing this. The futon, with its graceful, natural hinge proved to be the turning point.

Fixing the main body of the futon base sectioned off the shed into two halves nicely. We screwed a hook to the front section giving us an 'inside' door:

Fixing the futon base to the back wall and the shed ceiling:

the chicken wire down the side and top just closed some gaps. The wire at the top isn't strictly necessary, but just kept things nicely segregated. t was also donated for free by our neighbours which was much appreciated and basically reduced build costs to our time and some screws.

Internally we didn't need an awful lot. Our old coop was supposedly a 5 bird coop (by the number of nest boxes we're assuming) , but we always felt it a little small. We only wanted to up the number to 7 birds, but give them a little more internal space. 

About a year ago a friend had given us an old chest of draws due for the dump as firewood. One draw quite happily made three nest boxes.  At one nest box per 2 - 3 birds, this should be plenty:

The eggs attest the chooks are quite happy with the new arrangement.

The two long perches fit perfectly onto the underside struts of the futon base. Strips of wood screwed around the inside of the shed walls provide the support for the nest boxes and the perches on the other side. This was waste wood we had lying about and again cost us nothing. Grooves chiseled into the strip of wood running along the shed wall hold the perches securely and stop them shifting about:

  

We also need to make some modifications externally. Firstly some ventilation:

54mm drill holes provide the ventilation

And of course a door to let the chickens in - this is unfinished, and possibly a door that hooked up vertically, forming the ramp when dropped down would be better, but the shed wall didn't easily accommodate it, and we were limited with what waste wood we had left. The brick steps were also slightly quainter and also donated for free by our lovely neighbours:

We now have a couple of tasty looking black rocks (Beryl & Mavis -  about twice the size of all the other hens, you can almost smell the roast potatoes), three different leghorns (Ida (white), Rose (buff), Bettie (Cream)), a Rhode Island red (Winnie), and one scraggly looking ex-battery called Hattie. 

The leghorns didn't take to the new coop easily, and we found all three of them sleeping on top of the, now closed up, old coop for at least a week when we moved them into the new coop.

In the meantime...

We're looking after the parent's dog, Sas, while they're away on holiday. She loves coming out to see the chickens in the morning, but does have to learn not to chase them when we let them out. Here's how she's getting on...