Monday, September 8, 2014

Re-purposed Chicken Coop

Handy Hubby built the chicken coop from re-purposed material.
The shingles and 2x4's were left over from the construction of our home.
The plywood was scrap from a job site.
The only purchased items were the locks, hinges, two 1x6 lumber, and a gable vent.


The coop is 6' x 6' x 4' tall.


The nesting areas are located under hinged lids, on each side of the coop.
They are located on the outside of the fenced in area, making it easy for egg collecting.



There are a total of 8 nesting boxes (4 on each side).  They are made out of a 1x6 board.  
But the ladies all lay their eggs in one location!  


The coop and the door are made out of plywood.
There is a small door cut into the big door.  The big door has a bolt lock.


Opening the big door makes it easy to clean the coop and lay down clean straw.



The little door (which the ladies use) stays open during the day by use of a hook latch.
We close the small door at night, by hooking it on the other side.
Closing the ladies in the coop at night, protects them from predators.  They go in by themselves around the same time every night.  


The coop is elevated off the ground, and under the coop is surrounded by chicken wire.
This provides the ladies shade and shelter from the weather.
I see them hanging out under there sometimes during rain, instead of going inside.
I store layer pellets in the metal trash can. 


Inside are the roosts (a 2x4 cut in half) where they sleep at night.
You can also see the vent, which helps with circulation.


Here they are getting ready to go night night.


I stained the outside with deck stain.
In this picture, I'm pretty sure they are saying to each other "hey look at that clean straw, lets go scratch around and make it look how we want".  

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8 comments:

  1. I feel I need to "dress it up" some way....maybe a project for next year ;-)

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  2. Nice job on the coop, I still have to build mine :( But hope to have a few chicks in the yard next summer.

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    Replies
    1. I remember how excited I was getting ready for our little chickens. Good luck Terry!

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  3. What an idea! Creating a coop in re-purposed material or “scrap” will saves a lot of money. It’s very interesting reading this. I also love thinking and renovating my backyard chicken shop that will fit in to my place and for my chickens that they will love to dwell.

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  4. This story reminded me of how building our own chicken coop was one of the best decisions we have ever made.

    We now have daily fresh organic eggs for breakfast every day. We can recycle our food scraps and get high quality fertilizer for our garden.

    Plus, building a chicken coop saved us hundreds of dollars over buying those pre-built chicken coops, which have to be assembled anyway - you are really just paying hugely inflated prices.

    Even though I was a total beginner at this and did not have any carpentry skills, building a coop was not hard at all.

    All I did was follow these simple instructions on this website:

    http://www.bestquicktips.com/chickencoop

    Hope it helps anyone reading this!

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    a comment. I've bookmarked your website and shared this on my Twitter.
    Thanks again for a great article!

    ReplyDelete

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