Garden Journey

Chicken Coop Build

We built this coop with scrapped wood and no drawn-out plans for less than $500 and the chickens love it!

Location and Layout

It took me a while to figure out the location of this coop. The winning strategy was to imagine a donut around my house about ten yards out and with process of elimination I figured out I didn't want them to be in front the house or in the middle of the yard. So we leveled two old garden beds and it turned out to be the perfect spot because I check on them from behind the sliding glass door and the smells and sounds aren't too close. This is a new house so the motto is "plan for what it's going to be not what it is" and I will eventually take out the shed behind it.

I drew many coop/run plans my husband looked at a total of zero. I ended up telling him what I wanted and what I had to work with and he did the rest. We started by planted six 4x4 posts in the ground and that was the start of the layout.

Building the Coop and Nesting Boxes

I found 35 rotting 2x4s in the back of the house. This is Florida so untreated wood doesn't last long, about a quarter of them were crumbling, but the rest I brushed off and coated with some Killz and even though not a single one was straight they worked out to build this coop. We were able to scrounge up most of the other parts from spare panels we have from our cabinet business. The window is a glass cabinet door. We did buy about a $100 in OSB (really low quality plywood) and brackets for the roof for the roof and the part of the front to the coop. He pre-drilled a lot of the screw holes. We also had a box of free screws from a friend who was getting rid of stuff.

He built the nesting box out off the side with some old door hinges. There are four separate boxes inside and a lip against the floor of the coop.

For the roof we guestimated a good roof angle cut the 2x4s to that angle and used flat metal brackets to fasten them together also used brackets to fasten them to the walls below. Not sure if we did this right at all but the roof is able to hold a person and isn't shakey so it works. We put OSB on top covered it with roofing paper another $70. Added an aluminum drip edge. We had leftover shingles from our last new roof and my dad's new roof. Which means two different color shingles but the chickens don't mind.

The chickens have openings under the eaves for ventilation which we're probably a little short of. We also chose to have a raised coop so they have more space to run and so I can fit a black and red storage box underneath. So far I'm not really happy with dragging it out from under the coop every time I need to used it so I would say include a better storage solution if we ever made a coop again.

Roof and Structure

We spent about $30 on latches and hinges for different doors and things. I painted everything with leftover paint I found around the house. And my biggest expense... Hardware Cloth! I bought two rolls I could not find it any less expensive than $100 a roll and I looked. Home Depot, Lowes, Ace all had the same price but I didn't look at Walmart I found more hardware cloth for less at Walmart I attached the link below! I used two 25 ft x 4 ft rolls. We fastened it down with staples on all openings and I was able to cut it lawn shears. I did lay more hardware cloth around the ground of the coop, covered it with dirt and hammered it down with steaks in order to dig proof the coop. Nothing has tested this defense yet but so far no issues. We put a large door in on the coop and we made another door for the run.

We have five chickens Colonel, Pecker, Renesme, Cheerio, and Gray. If I were to make the coop again I'd only for certain make the run bigger because so far I love having chickens and I only want more of them!

Final Touches