Pasture Chicken Coops

Here you will see our pasture chicken coop designs. We make no claims that they are the best, but they work well for us. The biggest flaw is the weight, I can move them pretty easy, but Emily struggles a bit. Hoop houses would act like parachutes in the strong Montana winds and I was not comfortable using lighter wood. The pastures are not "smooth" so I did not want to have to build or repair coops regularly. 

Pic  1. Open side view

Pic 2. Closed side view

Pic 3. Front

The short side will be referred to as the "back".
The extension or foot can be see in pic 2. The 1 foot board extending beyond the front edge of the wall
The large front door and waters can be seen in pic 3.

Our movable chicken tractors are a bit different than what you often see on you tube. We designed them with our operating style, wind, and shade in mind.

1. The full tin roof
   1. Sun or Shade: Some folk build the coop with 1 half of the coop having no tin roof, which allows daylight into the coop. The chickens can then choose whether or not to be in the shade of son. Our methodology involves opening the coop door every morning. Sun or shade
   2. Shade: from the pictures you see our ecology is range prairie, so we maximized the amount of shade in the coop, because that may be the only shade in the chickens ranging distance.
   3. Weather: Hail is common June through August and snow is common in September, not unheard of in August. The up wind side of the coop is closest to the ground providing a wind break as well. The full tin roof provides adequate shelter in rain, snow, wind, and hail.
   4. The two edge panels of the roof are designed to be easily removed. When gathering the chickens for processing the “lid” is taken off and the chickens are transferred into the carrying crates.
2. Lean to design
   1. Wind protection as discussed above
   2. The small side is the side to be picked up. It is much lighter than the side with the door. This also allowed us to build the coops with sturdier material, which we felt was necessary given the 40+ mph winds.
3. The front extensions or "foot".
   1. Please see the picture. Is important for “draggability”. When the back is picked up the extensions allow the front base beam to be lifted completely off the ground. When the front base beam is on the ground the coop is near impossible to drag, Off the ground is easy
   2. Also you can see the frame is fastened with framing anchors. This was done so that when we drag the coops from the back of the property back up to the front, we lift the backend with the tractor and take off. No need to worry about it falling apart. Note we cannot just turn them around and work daily back to the front of the pasture; the back (short side) is always facing up wind.
4. Other
   1. The Door: Make it big. This allows for easy access in terms of placing food and water. The original design had the roof panels unfastened in the front so that we could access from the top at all times, but the wind blow the roof off, so they are fastened now.
   2. Waterer: We went the automatic waterer and bucket method. This method keeps the water cool. The other waters are also present.
   3. Walls: One side of the of the coop is a solid wall, the other is chicken wire. The solid wall is to block wind, but is heavy, that is why the other side is chicken wire.  

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Pic 4. shows the framing anchors for sturdy construction.

Pic 5. Shows the roof or "lid" partially open.

For a brief description as to why we pasture and move or chickens daily, please see. Why Pasture

As a brief farm update, it is cold at a lovely -5ºF this morning, and a few inches of fresh snow on the ground. It has been a pretty good winter with December being a record snow fall and the temps being low enough not to melt off. Farm operations have been pretty quite, but the planning and prepping is moving into full swing. Our newest batch of laying chicks have arrived and are acclimating. Market research and operational research is in full swing on pork, cattle & goats. The plan is to begin all 3 on a small scale this year, then scale based on what we learn next year.