Anyone got ideas for attractive coop & run ???

[Lucylou]

At last it looks like we might have found ourselves a new house to move to (well, fingers crossed!) The downside is that it doesn't have the large garden we had wanted, disappointingly we missed out on two other houses that had lovely large space attached but there you go, can't always have everything. We will be moving our 3 chooks from half acre to very neat & tidy cultivated garden! Luckily they are used to being enclosed as only free range at week-ends.

So, as this garden is quite small the chooks will be close to the house, we will build a suitable enclosure & as it will be seen from the house want it to look nice. The one they have now is not very artistic a coop converted from a tool store, the ground turned to mud years ago & its a bit 'wonky' !! I've been looking at the various Garden Structures available on websites such as Jewsons, just wondering if I could adapt something more aesthetic into an enclosure for them (or build something) but big enough to have a coop inside too? Anyone good at this sort of thing got any ideas?

As they're elderly girls wanted to get 2/3 young ones when we moved so would need to house about 6 girls & no, not keeping cooks is not an option :lol:

 

[tygrysek75]

I had put many links about interesting chicken cop's on polish forum.You can have a look there,plenty of links to chose from.
http://www.forum.woliera.com/viewtopic.php?t=18064
Also I'm absolutely adore Chicken Cop on FB

 

[dinosaw]

I think the problem you will face Lucylou is that you need to keep the run secure from predators and let light in which realistically means weld mesh which is never the nicest thing in the world to look at. Here are some photos of my former setup which was in what was a relatively large back garden, I got lucky in being able to pick up the onduline tiles on an end of line sale at £1 per tile, I built it in an L shape to go around the tree. I would say that if you want it to look nice avoid flat roofs, it isn't hard to pitch a roof at the size you are talking about, just use 2x2 for the roof beams, the top section of my run was 15ft X 6ft made up of a series of 6x3 panels I made from 2x2s, the bottom section was 12ft x 6ft.

 

[MrsBiscuit]

I think you'll have to start making those as a business - very nice 08

 

[dinosaw]

Thanks Mrs Biscuit , it certainly saved me a lot of money over buying a ready made solution, some poultry sites charge £34.50 per 6x3 panel and £55 per door and I had 21 panels and 3 doors in that run and that's without adding the cost of a roof and anti dig mesh skirts, there was a site on the net that did one the same size as mine with roof and mesh skirts but in one long stretch with only one door and it was £1400 which was over double what it cost me, though I have to own up and say it took me a fair old while and lots of frustrated head scratching before it was finished .

 

[Lucylou]

Thank you,
Dinosaw & tygrysek , lots of good ideas there, some of the coops on the links you put on the Polish forum Tygrysek were fabulous, I think I'll move in with the chooks!! Just waiting to find out if we've got the house (for the humans) now, then I'll get to work!!