Coop Tour!

Well...the coop is not finished, but it's pretty darn close, and I have a feeling there will be lots of little adjustments and additions here and there for a long time. So without further adieu let me take you on a coop tour. This picture was taken on July 10th. In the background you can see an empty space behind our neighbor's house. That empty space used to be a garage, and that is where the majority of our building supplies came from. Our neighbors were constantly bringing over useful pieces and letting us dig through their waste piles, it was very good timing for us both! Aaron dug out a 4 x 8 foot outline for the coop, although we ended up shifting it out a few feet as per our landlord's request. I'm glad we did, it gives a wider pathway behind the coop.


Let me preface this tour by saying that this whole thing came out of Aaron's head. Sure we looked at pictures and got ideas. But no where could we find complete measurements. And we were working with recycled materials, which required even more thought and planning. He made it up as he went, and did a fantastic job.


I'm going to skip over a lot of construction here and get to the goods. Starting to look like a coop!



Putting on the roof. This panel obviously came from a frat. We got it from an apartment dumpster and Aaron pulled three of them hinged together out over his head at the same time. This picture doesn't really show how large that wood is, or how heavy it was!


The tin roof is on, the tin was from the neighbor's garage. I think it's charming. And it makes me want to call it the Chicken Shack.



Okay fast forward to present day. This is the inside of the roost and nest box area. They sleep on those two bars and will lay eggs in the nest boxes to the right. The door opens completely for easy cleaning.



Here is a closer view. I painted the boxes black because they like dark areas while they lay. All paint was free and rescued from the garbage minus the blue which we had leftover from painting beehives.


With the door closed and latched.


If there is ever a security breach we can still lock them up tight while they sleep with this door. Otherwise we leave it open and when they wake up they can go downstairs for breakfast until I let them out into the run.


The nest boxes are set outside of the main area to add space. There is a door that opens from the outside for easy egg collection.


This is the view from the run. I want to add some more trim to the top to finish the look and we need to devise something for getting in and out of the run. Dealing with that roll of wire is a pain.



Aaron thought and thought about how he wanted to do the chicken door. He finally came up with this system. A pulley allows the inset door to slide up and down.


We lock the door open by looping the rope over a pin.


When we want to close them in, we pull on the rope to release it from the pin then allow the door to close. The pin is pushed in, locking the door and a piece of wood goes over the pin to keep raccoons from figuring out how to open the door. Genius!


Here is a side view. The front isn't done yet, we are still waiting on the right piece of plywood.


My favorite feature has to be the flower box. I can't wait to get it planted earlier next year and have nice flowers in it. They are a little scrappy this year.


Ta da! This end is pretty much finished, and definitely the cutest side. I can't wait to get all of the little details finished! I want to make a sign and Aaron wants to put gutters on it. It may be a while before it's all done, but for now I'm satisfied. I love our little coop!


I was keeping very careful track of how much we spent on this - until it got hectic at the end and I was running to the store constantly to pick things up the day before the chickens arrived. We mainly bought hardware, we had a lot of screws and wood from dorm loft kits, but that ran out. We also had to buy the hardware cloth to cover the walls. Most of the trim is from the neighbor's and also from a set of Ikea bed slats found in the garbage. A friend gave us the flower box. The window was from Habitat - $3, and the people door was free from next door. Like I said, I lost track, but I'm pretty sure we kept it under $200. Making this with all new materials would have been so expensive, I am so thankful for all of the free materials that we got.