Hunting For Chicken Coop Greenhouse Info!

Discussion in 'Designing, building, making and powering your life' started by BelindaKate, Jun 14, 2015.

  1. BelindaKate

    BelindaKate Junior Member

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    Hey, everyone!
    So, my local council said I'm allowed up to 10 chickens (no roosters) on my suburban block. I intend to get the max of 10 chickens, of course. 8)
    I would also like to build a small greenhouse. The mini-greenhouses/hoop-houses I've put over my raised garden beds are working a treat during this cooler weather (Australian winter, atm), so I'd like to expand on that with a more permanent structure. I'd also like to see if it'd be possible to grow more tropical plants (Turmeric & Ginger are pretty high on my wishlist) in a greenhouse during summer. We have super hot summers here, but they're dry as a bone. I'm thinking a greenhouse setup will allow me to increase the humidity and the growing season.

    While I was looking around on Pinterest for greenhouse designs, I stumbled across a diagram apparently by Bill Mollison:
    [​IMG]

    I hadn't considered building the greenhouse and chicken coop as a single structure, before. I was hoping I could ask you lovely people for more information on this concept (pros/cons)?

    Here's a rough sketch of my block (the red star is the Hills Hoist clothes line):

    [​IMG]

    The Proposed Coop & Greenhouse location is currently an ugly metal garden shed (yes, there are currently two ugly metal garden sheds in the backyard, and a big 6m x 6m wood working shed on the side of the property). The garden shed is on a concrete slab. I want to get rid of the shed and build the coop and greenhouse on top of the existing concrete slab. The slab is nearly 3mx3m (sorry, I know the dimensions on the drawing are pretty off- the veggie patch is about 3.4m across).

    The main reasons I want the coop in this location:
    > I can see the coop from the house's back patio- I love watching chickens do their thing.
    > It allows me to create a large permanent chicken run with minimal fencing (basically just need to fence that bit between the house and the garden shed, behind the veggie patch, and the front of the compost area).
    > I will be building an arbor at the back of the property to train grapes over (and hopefully espalier some small fruit, such as cherries, in front). I'm hoping this will provide nice shade during the summer, as well as benefit the plants growing on the arbor in having the chooks be in close proximity.
    > This area (not including the lawn, which I'm not allowed to uproot) gets the most winter sun. Unfortunately, it also gets a fair whack of summer sun, but I'm hoping my container planting schemes will take care of that.
    > The compost location is almost constantly in shadow all year round due to the neighbour's trees and the cast-shadow from the garden shed (or what will be the coop/greenhouse). It's a wasted space for plants, but good for compost, methinks. And I'd love to give the chicken's easy access to the compost pile, so they can scratch around in it.

    The main reason I want the greenhouse in this location:
    > I figure 3mx3m is too big an area to be solely a chicken coop when the chooks will have so much roaming space (both the permanent run and when we let them out on the lawn), so I'm thinking going halves. Coop on one half, greenhouse on the other.
    > It gets the winter sun.

    Now, I figure the coop has to be on the right-hand side of the proposed coop location. This way, I can wheel a wheelbarrow against the coop's opening and scrape out the bedding and poop easily (the coop will be two levels- coop on top with extra run space underneath). So either that opening will be on the compost side or the clothes line side of the coop. The access to the nesting boxes will be on the side not used by the cleaning opening. If that makes sense.

    Please let me know if I'm forgetting something basic here! I'm a total newbie, so set me straight if I'm planning something wrong. ;) And if you know of any resources regarding chicken greenhouse designs, I'd appreciate it! Otherwise I'll just be building the coop and greenhouse as separate structures, side by side, and that seems like a waste of proximity, to me.

    Thanks!
     

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