The Colorado Coop

Our family, myself (Dan), my wife TJ, my son Silas and daughter Lydia, all moved to rural Colorado about one year ago from Minnesota.  I have always dreamed of living in the mountains, especially near the San Juan Range, one of the most beautiful places in the lower 48 states.  We wanted to find a good elevation to be at a lower elevation so winters are temperate (which isn't hard for a Minnesotan) but close to the San Jaun mountain range.  Montrose, CO emerged as the perfect living place, with a town of nearly 20,000 people and elevation 5,800 feet.   The climate in Montrose is incredible .... summer weather is fantastic, spring is long, winter is mild (compared to MN), and fall is amazing!!

When our family moved to rural CO, we started in rental house, to get our bearings and acclimate to the community.  We had a small 2 acre rental property that allowed for chickens, horses, etc ... and we were near town, with close proximity to stores and basic amenities.   The San Juan mountains are about 30 miles to the south.  In the summer we go on  weekly UTV side by side family adventures, with our kids to Ouray, Silverton, & Telluride with numerous 14,000 ft mountains in the Alpine Loop. We enjoy riding all summer in the mountains and then we adjust for lower elevations for winter riding.

Then it happened, we got notified that our rental would be put on the market and we would need to find other lodgings.  Hence a last minute search for a property commenced and in this hot real estate market, to find a property that met our animal needs, proved to be rather difficult.

Finally we located a 13 acre property, within 1 mile of town.  It has nearly a 360 degree view of the San Juans, Grand Mesa, Flat Top, the Black Canyon and the Uncompahgre National Forest.  If you like panoramic views, amazing sunsets, stars and quiet rural life with close proximity to town ... this really is a dream property for us. However there was a missing key element, Alas no Chicken Coop ...

We had been reading articles and scanning various coop designs. We knew living in rural Colorado meant wild and domestic animals could be a problem with chickens.  We had met people around town who told us of loosing Chickens to Fox, Racoons, skunks, dogs, etc ... so we decided to build our own coop, primarily with security features in mind and with large enclosed northern/southern exposures.

Side note: Given the move we had to find temporary accommodations for the chickens.  We housed them in our horse trailer for a few weeks while we finished the coop project.  The horse trailer actually worked rather well as a temporary lodging situation!

The exterior design premise of the chicken coop is that we were looking for shade overhangs in summer and sun availability in winter.  Basically, we wanted southern sun exposure for winter time to keep the chickens dry and warm while keeping the snow out. We wanted northern exposure for summer time to maximize on shade. We built roughly a 22' x 12' entire structure, with 8'x12' enclosed coop interior and two wire enclosed sides that measure 7'x12' on north and south.

The construction process commenced.  We rented a skidster to do some ground leveling since we had to build the coop on a slight hill and we had to fix drainage around the coop to ensure during heavy snow melt the water would move around the sides and away from the coop.  The coop rests on 16" x 16" concrete pavers that are 1.5" thick to help alleviate animals from burrowing under.  The flooring frame is encased in 1/2" hardware cloth to prevent critters from creating holes in the flooring and getting into the coop. We attached the hardware cloth on the top and the bottom of the flooring for redundancy and security.  Lastly,  we attached the sub-flooring plywood to the treated floor frame.  Note: Keep in mind on the flooring it is probably best to use at least 5/8" or 3/4"  treated plywood if possible, it will greatly strengthen the sub-flooring and worth the investment.  I initially used that OSB (oriented strand board) flooring and it was way to flimsy for flooring in my opinion, it was not structurally sound until I switched to 3/4" plywood, so don't make that mistake :)

Once the floor frame and sub-floor were in place, we began construction on framing of the coop with the interior dimensions of 8'x12', with 8' walls. 

The roof then commenced in earnest, we have variable weather in rural Colorado and you never know what weather might appear.   For the roof  we hand constructed our own gable trusses to cover the 12' expanse on each side including the shaded overhangs.  4' was for the enclosed coop and 7' for the overhang.  I think this was the trickiest part in the coop design, was extending the coop with a 12x3 pitch, but using some good levels and bracing we were able to accomplish the continuation of  roof line out over our eventual wire areas.

The rusted metal roofing we got from Recla Metals  http://reclametals.com/ metals in Montrose, CO. We bought 4 panels of  3' by 24' and had them cut them in half, so we had 8 panels of 12'x3' in their 1/2" bare skin corrugated metal.  Once the roof was on, we left about 3 inch at peak for the ridge vent, adding  1/4" hardware cloth over the 3" vent ... basically to keep critters out and  allow for good ventilation on hot summer days.   Note: The exterior over hangs are roughly 7x12 to allow for roof pitch and overhang, but I used a 12' sheet of corrugated tin,  wanting to keep a few inches for drip overhang.

 

I believe it was at about this point we got our first 6" snow-storm! It was late spring and we were glad to have the roof in place before the snow hit. plus we got to take a couple days break.   We actually got hit by a second storm, of which the locals said ... "This is a rather unusual spring" :)

A day later,  after the snow melted and all siding was  fully attached my wife had ordered windows from Shed Windows and More.   We had used Shed Windows and More products on a previous coop and really liked the windows.  I framed in the windows and then cut holes using a sawzall  and the windows worked perfectly.  The windows come with a basic screen but we added an additional  1/4" hardware cloth over all the screen areas for each window, to help alleviate any predators getting through the windows.  All the doors are custom framed, cut and trimmed. I framed in the door, cutting again with the sawzall, then we framed in another 2"x4",  to give a good frame of the door something solid to close and secure against. Lastly we added hinges and latches for closing.

Now that the windows and doors were in place, the coop was nearing completion with just a few items to wrap up.  I used 1/2" hardware cloth for the exterior shaded areas and stapled it every 3" and sometimes more!  We also added a 24" hardware apron to prevent animals from digging under the sides into the coop, so the hardware cloth comes down to the ground and then goes below about 2" round and then extended another 24" horizontally, under dirt away from the coop.  The theory is a critter, like a fox, coyote or stray dog will come up on the coop and will dig by the wall and find the hardware cloth and "cease & desist"  from digging under (we will see how it works). 

The final projects were to get the interior painted, roost up and roll away nest boxes up. I built the nest box with 6 nests for our 12 hens.  The primary reason we designed a roll away nest box was to  allow us to be gone for a day without having to collect eggs and hopefully alleviate any egg eating from starting.  My wife TJ did all the interior painting, she used a kiltz primer & Behr exterior paint.  She painted the nest boxes various colors of exterior paint For A Splash Of Color.

The final, final project was attaching our sign, that we got from Dakota Sign Co, family friends from Rochester, MN. They have made several signs for our ranch, and do fantastic work! 

Our chickens now have a functional and secure home, to enjoy their beautiful views in Montrose CO

A special Thank-you to our friend Jean. She put in a lot of hours building the coop and helping us move. She was a huge blessing, always coming with a positive attitude, encouraging us and keeping us motivated

The only remaining feature we plan to add this summer is an exterior Chicken Run 50'x100' with 5' tall wire fencing with another under ground hardware apron.

All in all it was a fun project, but I am glad to be done! The project  was  completed on our 17 year anniversary, so it doubled as my anniversary gift to my wife. "The Perfect Gift," She Says.

Coop Summary:

We built a 22x12 structure with 8x12 interior chicken coop with two 7x12, hardware cloth enclosed overhangs, one facing north to maximize on shade in summer and one facing south to maximize on sun in winter.  We added a ridge vent & 6 windows for lighting and ventilation. We built in numerous security protections including 1/2" hardware cloth on floor framing, 1/4" hardware cloth ridge vent, 24" hardware 1/2" aprons to prevent animals digging under overhangs and buried 2" under dirt and lastly 1/4" hardware cloth on screened windows. We added roll-away nest boxes so we can be gone for day or two and not worry about "egg eating birds".