Being an accidental (impulse) chicken owner few years ago, I had to find a coop that is functional, economical and as quick as possible before my wife change her mind to let me keep the chicks. I almost bought one of those premanufactured coop kits that I found online, after all I’ve put together toys for our kids that took forever to assemble (sarcastically) until I saw and touch one in our local store. I asked myself if I want to invest my $500-600 hard earned money on this cute yet flimsy wooden coop? And jeopardize my first venture with chicks and hearing my wife “I told you your a city boy, get rid of those chicken”? But being from the city and not knowing anything about building a coop, predators, and farm life, I started researching and reading about chickens, pre-ranging and coop safety. Thanks to BYC, Chicken Chick, and YouTube learned a lot within a weeks time on what to look for and what to avoid. I hate to admit I was jealous of Martha Stewart’s coops that I bumped into YouTube search, but I don’t have her money to hire someone nor the property for it.
These sleepless nights of mini research led me to conclude: I will design, gather materials as cheap (yeah right) as possible and build my own coop. Now my job requires me to work 50-55 hours a week that requires traveling often, considering of my lack of knowledge about building and construction of anything also I don’t own any tools except a screw driver and a hammer that my wife’s aunt gave us as a wedding gift. So might take a long time to build with my inexperience. To make long story short, I doodled a couple design for coop, copied a few features here in there and end up calling it a cape cod garden shed/coop. In case chicken doesn’t work out I can convert it to a shed or even to our kids play house or the mowers parking spot.
I decided on 10x12 and 10’ high coop with lots of windows and multiple doors. I’ve checked on prefab doors but way over my budget so are the windows. So I ended up watching YouTube over and over on how to make doors, and found 4 windows online for minimal $$. Here’s when I first started the project that’s been evolving almost every season.
What did I got myself into?
Learning as I go, never knew there’s so much detail to making doors and windows frame cutout.
Decided to insulate from cold and or heat
Now interior walls and vinyl protection for easy cleanup
Almost forgot the pop door before putting the FRP liners
*Garden was neglected since am working on the coop and run
I decided a quick place to park their Eggs, after all I might used them garden pots for tomatoes
Another quick ideas that came up before I fly to another city for few days.
Added more roof to the run, the half roof doesn’t cut it.
And the Expensive Rewards of Hard Labor