The Chicken Coop

I've always wanted chickens. So, about a month ago I decided to build a chicken coop. I have never built anything in my life. I knew I had my work cut out for me, but there was always my DH Jeff to ask for help. The first step was to read anything I could find about raising chickens. I got most of my information from this site. I already had a spot picked out - we have an old garden shed/greenhouse out back with a chain-link fence around it. I decided to build it lean-to style against the wall of the shed. But first I had to clean up the area a little.

Okay, maybe more than a little.

I had stacks and stacks of plant pots stockpiled, so I put those on Freecycle and they were gone from my life by that evening. The rest of the junk I threw out or moved to a different area. Now I had to find materials. I knew I had to do this as inexpensively as possible, so I started looking around. We had some 2x4's, a couple of treated fence posts, and some plywood.

I had been driving past this pile of stuff for almost a month before I decided to stop and get a closer look.

They were some kind of metal panels with about an inch and a half of insulation between them. Perfect for insulating the coop walls!

My first purchase was a 50' roll of chicken wire and 2 bags of cement. Cost- about $16.

I made the run first.

Then, I started building the walls.

I just framed right around those panels. Now I needed plywood to cover them. I went on Craigslist and found someone liquidating their farm on Canyon Rd. (Aaah...progress!). He had 7 or 8 4'x18' panels that had been a large advertising sign in its previous life. Cost - $25. Those were used for the walls and the roof, too. I also went to our friends Kristi and Larry's house and raided their wood pile of 2x4's. Cost - free. I needed some other things that I wasn't finding for free, so I made a trip to the hardware store for framing brackets, another fence post, some concrete piers, and more 2x4's. Cost - $90.

I found an old door in another shed, and an old gate laying out on the property.

Jeff built some nest boxes for me.

Here's a look from the outside. Notice the remnants of the advertisement on the roof panels.

So, what's left? I need to finish roofing (after a trip to Home Depot to buy more tar paper and shingles) and I need to bury 8-10 inches of chicken wire around the bottom of the shed to keep the critters out. Then, I'm all ready for the chickens! Yea!