Deluxe Large Wood Chicken Coop Backyard Hen House 6-10 Chickens with 6 Nesting Box

After looking at multiple coops at our local farm supply stores, we decided to order this coop despite some of the reviews. We are glad we did! We have a large 12’x12’ run, and only needed the actual coop. This coop was much larger than those with runs attached at similar price points. Also, I knew we could send it back to Amazon easily if we weren’t pleased, but we are.1st, if you are unfamiliar with pre-fabricated coops, you may consider this one to be flimsy, but in comparison to others it is not. We added 8 screws in between the pre-drilled on the front and back joining edges and it really sturdied up more. If you are planning on leaving this coop out in the open, I would not recommend. If you are placing it in a large run, I really suggest it.2nd, the latches and hinges are not very strong but could easily be upgraded if the coop was going to be in the open and not in a run. If it were going to be left out in the open I would not trust the hardware to keep anything out.3rd, the screws are pressure resistant and the heads will break off if you screw in to fast or tight when getting close to sinking. Took us once to learn to slow the auto screwdriver down and take our time sinking the screws.4th, we will be weatherizing it with some Thompson’s waterproofing, the wood is stained not sealed. BUT, we would do that to any one we would’ve bought. It’s common sense to know they are better protected and last longer this way.5th, we will also be raising the coop up off the ground a bit like another reviewer posted pics of. It will help in protecting the longevity of the wood.Honestly, we are country farmers and we build almost everything. My husband built our barn, for example, and he said while assembling the coop that there is no way we could build a coop like this for the money we paid on our own. We would’ve had so much more money and time put in.Hope this helps some of you with you future purchase.

If I could go back and not waste the money on this coop I would. We purchased this coop for my flock of 11 chickens. Our current coop at the time was too small and as our babies were getting old enough to join our exiting flock, we needed a much larger coop to split their sleeping arrangements.Assembly took several hours and once up was not only beautiful, but was exactly what we needed and the flock immediately chose to house in the coop. We secured every latch with a lock to prevent unwanted entry very handy feature!2 months later we lost our first chicken. Due to the cheap material and poor construction a raccoon was able to pry slats off 1 of the nesting boxes and kill 1 of my chickens. We repaired it and thought we solved the problem.1 month after that, the ramp door was ripped off its hinges. Only left hanging on by the lock we had secured to it. 2 chickens were killed. We repaired the ramp door and hoped we had fixed it. This was September.We went another two months with only having to repair single slats as they were ripped off. And lost only 1 chicken due to the raccoon only being able to grab the chicken and pulling its head through the slats it had ripped off.Christmas Day we went to let our girls out and the other entry door was laying askew and another was gone. We repaired that door as well.We tried everything from putting stuff in the ground as a repellant to putting up motion lights. We had thought we had solved the problem as another 2 months passed with no further damage.At the beginning of March the entire side to a nesting box had been pulled off and 2 of my chickens were destroyed. After THAT repair we wrapped the entire nesting boxes in chicken wire. No more pulling the slats off as we stapled it to the sides of the coop. Only 3 hens left and a rooster out of 11 total. Surely we couldn’t possibly need to do anything else. Well…we were wrong. Last week, the ramp door was again ripped from the hinges. And another was taken.We started with a mature flock of 4 we had for 2 years, a flock of 3 teen chickens , and raised 4 more chicks to maturity. In less than 10 months the flock has been reduced to only 2 hens left.Everyone understands there’s a risk to owning chickens and there is only so much you can do while your chickens roam around a chicken run. Hawks could swoop in, foxes could slip through a fence, heck a tree branch could take them out! The only time you don’t worry is while in a locked and secured coop for the night.Very heartbroken over this loss and will never recommend to anyone not only this brand but anything like it.

This coop was easy to build and the price was appropriate for what you are getting. Unfortunately though, we made into our 4th week of chicks before a predator (likely a raccoon) discovered they could just push up on the bottom of the nesting box to gain access and devour 2/3 of our chicks, leaving the rest with PTSD. If you buy this coop, please reinforce the bottom of the nesting boxes with screws. We also changed the door latches to sturdier locking ones.