As part of our ordinance, we had to submit a site map and structural drawing for the chicken coop. Ben put his engineering background to good use and put together these:
Site Map/ Site Plan
Click for full size version. Site map/site plan: shows property lines and positions of all permanent structures. Basically a copy of my “platt map”, which I received when I purchased my home- you can get a copy from the city offices. Obviously we had to add the location/dimensions of the coop.
Structural Drawing
Click for full size version. Structural drawing: shows the dimensions of the coop from overhead, the side, and the front. Also a detailed drawing of the footer we used, and materials listing. Everything must be drawing to scale.
Please be aware that everything must be to scale when submitting to the city of Ferndale, just like you’d have with a building plan for a home or garage. It’s not too difficult, but is certainly intimidating if you’ve never done it before.
8 thoughts on “Chicken Coop Site Map & Structural Plan”
We’re #2 ! My inspection is tomorrow. A little surprised that we are the only 2! Not that I expected a mad rush on chicken raising in Ferndale ~ just thought there would be couple more by now!?!
I’m kinda amazed too- from what I’ve heard, a lot of people pulled the paperwork, but haven’t turned anything in. Maybe the process is intimidating? There’s a lot of regulation surrounding the coop build, so that might be a turn off. Plus- all the people who already HAVE hens might not want to have to rework their coop or minimize their flock (the flocks I know of have at least 4+ hens instead of 3). Whatever the case, I’m glad you’re getting involved and inspected- we might be the only 2 for a while, but at least they’ll see that it was wanted and can be successful!
We’re legal now too! It was the same inspector that came to your coop, really nice guy! It was so quick and easy – I can’t believe how much worrying and stressing I did!
p.s. Great article and pictures!
Awesome, congrats!! I’m so glad you’re all legal too- no more stressing means more time enjoying your chicks! Hopefully this gets the ball rolling and even more people get their backyard coops set up and inspected.
It is amazing the hoops you all have to jump through! It’s so totally worth it, but still. Come on, people, it’s a coop, not a strip club! The chickens are not going to take over your town or turn your children into vagrants and miscreants! 🙂
Serious kudos, though – those plans are really quite gorgeous.
Love your blog -found it yesterday while searching for Pergolas with a weatherproof cover. Wasn’t sure if it could be done and still look nice. I’m thinking 16′ by 12′ for the total footprint, 6 hens, hopefully will be pasturing during the day. Also plan on the three sided open coop. Are you goin to have ivy covering the pergola? I’m thinking green beans.
thanks! I’m so happy I did the pergola- it’s a miniature version of my larger “people pergola” behind my house, so they really work together in the yard. I’m debating on the ivy thing; my original plan was to have stone paths around the coop run, to allow easy viewing access and to prevent anything from trying to dig into the run. However, it’d be nice to add a little extra shade to the run… so, now it’s between planting tall grasses/shrubs around, or using climbing plants. I have a feeling the chickens would peck anything climbing on the hardware cloth, though- which means I couldn’t do wisteria or anything that could poison them.
Awesome work you are doing in the community! Your blog is super motivating for me to start planning for some backyard hens for next season (if I can only convince my wife). I just converted my front grass into veg/pollinator beds. Adding hens into my budding urban permaculture experiment will do wonders in adding diversity and another manure input into my system. Hats off to you! I’d love to see your set up some time as I am just over on St. Louis.
Ferndale Chickens 
We’re #2 ! My inspection is tomorrow. A little surprised that we are the only 2! Not that I expected a mad rush on chicken raising in Ferndale ~ just thought there would be couple more by now!?!
Yay!! Let me know how it goes!
I’m kinda amazed too- from what I’ve heard, a lot of people pulled the paperwork, but haven’t turned anything in. Maybe the process is intimidating? There’s a lot of regulation surrounding the coop build, so that might be a turn off. Plus- all the people who already HAVE hens might not want to have to rework their coop or minimize their flock (the flocks I know of have at least 4+ hens instead of 3). Whatever the case, I’m glad you’re getting involved and inspected- we might be the only 2 for a while, but at least they’ll see that it was wanted and can be successful!
We’re legal now too! It was the same inspector that came to your coop, really nice guy! It was so quick and easy – I can’t believe how much worrying and stressing I did!
p.s. Great article and pictures!
Awesome, congrats!! I’m so glad you’re all legal too- no more stressing means more time enjoying your chicks! Hopefully this gets the ball rolling and even more people get their backyard coops set up and inspected.
It is amazing the hoops you all have to jump through! It’s so totally worth it, but still. Come on, people, it’s a coop, not a strip club! The chickens are not going to take over your town or turn your children into vagrants and miscreants! 🙂
Serious kudos, though – those plans are really quite gorgeous.
I’m surprised that they don’t require a PE stamp!
Love your blog -found it yesterday while searching for Pergolas with a weatherproof cover. Wasn’t sure if it could be done and still look nice. I’m thinking 16′ by 12′ for the total footprint, 6 hens, hopefully will be pasturing during the day. Also plan on the three sided open coop. Are you goin to have ivy covering the pergola? I’m thinking green beans.
thanks! I’m so happy I did the pergola- it’s a miniature version of my larger “people pergola” behind my house, so they really work together in the yard. I’m debating on the ivy thing; my original plan was to have stone paths around the coop run, to allow easy viewing access and to prevent anything from trying to dig into the run. However, it’d be nice to add a little extra shade to the run… so, now it’s between planting tall grasses/shrubs around, or using climbing plants. I have a feeling the chickens would peck anything climbing on the hardware cloth, though- which means I couldn’t do wisteria or anything that could poison them.
Awesome work you are doing in the community! Your blog is super motivating for me to start planning for some backyard hens for next season (if I can only convince my wife). I just converted my front grass into veg/pollinator beds. Adding hens into my budding urban permaculture experiment will do wonders in adding diversity and another manure input into my system. Hats off to you! I’d love to see your set up some time as I am just over on St. Louis.