The Coop

I don’t have the cycles for the full walkthrough of this coop just yet, but the girls all live in “Cluckingham Palace” – a board and batten style coop/run combo. Unfortunately Mrs. Jp’s Random Life was unable to wait until the backyard was “ready” so I had to design the coup in a way that it could be moved (more on that later). As you can see below, it’s a little on the larger size because Mrs. Jp’s Random Life wanted to be able to walk into the run and live her dream as a chicken whisperer. Full disclosure, we didnt just make up the coop as we went along. We purchased the plans from TriCityShedPlans on Etsy for less than $15.

When we first embarked on this chicken journey, everyone we talked to who had chickens had differing opinions and strategies on how they build and maintain their flock. Here are some of our highlighted decisions:

Coop Technology

The coop door – this is one of the main protections the chickens have against predators. For our door we wanted a door we could control remotely, but one that also had some automations to it. We splurged a bit on this to get the automation we wanted, and by no means do you need to spend $200+ on a chicken door. But we did – and we went with the Omlet Smart Automatic Chicken Coop Door. The 2 main reasons for this choice was that it could be integrated into Home Assistant, but it also had sensors that were light sensitive and would open and close based on if it was morning or night.

Cameras – While not an original requirement, Mrs. Jp’s Random Life would not go to sleep when we first got the chickens without making sure they all were in the coop safely tucked away for the night. Because of this, we ended up outfitting the coop with a few Zumimall Solar Wifi Cameras. The cameras are fairly cheap (about $35 each) and the resolution both during the day and night is amazing. They also allow a cloud connect via a smartphone app, and of course, integrate with Home Assistant. We can essentially watch Chicken TV when we are not home, its actually pretty cool.

Temperature & Humidity Sensors – Since we were automating the coop anyway, why not spend an additional $8 on 2 temperature and humidity sensors. We put one in the coop and one in the run. This helps us keep a real time pulse on the chickens environment. A little overkill, but again – it integrated into Home Assistant, so we went with it.

Home Assistant View – I know I keep talking about Home Assistant. In fact I have a whole section on this site about home automation. But for completeness, this is the dashboard I have setup currently that allows us to get a good overview of the coop as well as some metrics. At the time of this screenshot the Run Environmentals battery is dead. It’s currently raining out, so…that’s something to fix tomorrow. But it reports in just the same as the Inside Coop Environmentals.

Misc. Chicken Care

Bedding – The problem with backyard chickens is that there is no one way to do things. This is especially true when it comes to how you layout and care for the coop. One thing we ended up doing was using washed all purpose sand (not play sand!) for the coop and run floor instead of straw/hay. This allows us to clean the chicken coop as if its a giant litter box. It definitely cuts down on the mess and makes it easier to clean. Also, it may not initially sound like it, but the sand acts as a good insulator for the raise coop area in the winter for holding in heat.

Medical – The problem with chickens is that your local vet is almost guaranteed to not deal with poultry. This puts backyard chicken keepers in a bind if one of their flock falls ill or has an issue. We’ve had luck with some online telemedicine services like ask.com or vetster.com.