Our new chickens! Building the coop…

So once I knew I wanted chickens the first thing I did was start looking at chicken coops. I needed a coop to protect the chickens from the wild life around us so going 100% free range was not an option. It didn’t take me long to realize that if I had to spend $500 to $1000 on a chicken coop there was no way I could afford to get chickens.

So I started looking at ways to build one. I talked to my dad and my father-in-law both experienced handy men for ideas. I talked to some friends who have or have had chickens. I read website blogs and magazine articles. It didn’t take long to figure out that building a coop was doable! But… most of the articles and websites were for people raising around 4 to 6 chickens and I wanted 25! I wanted enough to try to sell eggs and I wanted a specific breed that I was unlikely to be able to pick up at the Tractor Supply so I needed to get 25 to have them shipped. My first thought was I would get 25 and then try to sell them off to recoup the cost of the extras and be able to do a smaller coop myself.

Then my oldest son got a new bed and a coop design was born! His old bed was a bunk bed with dresser and desk and slide out bed. He wanted to keep the dresser, the bottom bed was trashed from a 210 lb “kid” sleeping on it for 5 years. It seemed to meet all of my requirements. We could put screen at the top for “windows”, the roof could be windows for heat in the winter, the doors could be repurposed to ramp/door combinations and the floor could be built where the dressers use to sit allowing for room under the coop for my chickens to hide when hawks and owls were flying around (although it has been a bigger hit for shade on hot days). I had the bed frame and windows so my cost was going down since I would only have to buy some plywood sheets for the other walls.

I talked to my son about it and we looked at pictures of stuff that was out there and we decided we (by we I mean he) could build it. A few days later my dad told me he was replacing his back deck and wanted to know if I wanted the old wood!!!! How exciting, now I didn’t have to buy plywood AND I could add a roosting box onto the coop! After talking to Drew about it and looking at more pictures he began working.

We weren’t able to repurposed the doors he had to build new ones. We had to use some old plywood we had around along with what was in the bed for the floor. We bought latches, some screws, and hinges. The total cost was around $20 for the coop!

We learned some lessons and have made a few changes since we started. We had to raise the boards in the roosting boxes about an inch so that we could clean them easier by spraying everything under the boards to one end and then pulling the extra out. I want to change the perches that come off the floor be on the walls so that we can easily spray out the straw from one side to the other instead of having to climb in and get it out where it sticks on the perches.

I’m attaching pictures for everyone. If you’re interested in building a coop yourself check out Mother Earth News blogs and articles online for great information, plans, and advice!