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I'm a 25 year old woman and I built this chicken coop on my own. So if you're thinking about building a coop and are a little nervous/hesitant, don't be! You can do it! :)

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What started as a sketch on a piece of paper, slowly but surely evolved into an actual chicken coop that actually functioned and actually was not going to fall down/break in half/crumble into a million pieces.

This thing is solid and it **** well better be after many, many hours of weekend work. I'm obviously not going to give a tutorial with the coop because I'll be honest and say there was a lot of guessing and trial/error. I feel like if I tried to build a coop now it would take me 1/2 the time and would probably even be functionally better. Practice makes perfect, right? I'm going to include a lot of photos though so that those interested in building a coop of their own can see what I thought was best.

Okay, enough talk. Here's some more pictures of the coop and the girls (which PS they are all laying so much that we have eggs coming out of OUR butts!!! Fritata or quiche anyone?)



The run that attaches to the side of the coop allows the girls to walk around if we are not home and need them to be safe/protected from predators. The whole run is covered in chicken wire or hardware cloth and the roof we quickly upgraded to clear PVC panels (you can see that a few pictures down). I made a screened human-size door to easily enter the run.



I added 2 vents to the coop and the windows are also open and covered with hardware cloth so that there is enough air flow and ventilation inside the coop. Even in the Summer (we live in Florida so it is HOT), the coop stays cool from the ventilation, shade of nearby pine trees and the cedar shingle roof).



Here's the clear PVC panel roof to the run that I mentioned above. It allows the girls to stay in the run even if it's raining outside. You can also see the cedar shingles on the main coop.



They walk up this cute little ladder to get into the coop at bedtime.



I added a hinged access door on the bottom of the run so that we can easily add food and water (without having to crawl through the run and under the coop). The silver bucket is the feeder and the home depot bucket has nipples underneath that I ordered on amazon and attached to the bottom. This is the cleanest/most hygienic way for the chickens to access fresh water.


On the back of the coop is the nesting box. This is where the girls lay their eggs each morning! The box makes it super easy for us to collect eggs without having to enter the coop or run at all.


On the other side of the coop, the whole side panel acts as a door that opens up to the inside of the coop. This allows for easy cleaning, I can fit a big broom or rake in there when I am changing out the pine shavings.

Oh and those bolts on the bottom of the coop are where we can attach wheels if we want to move the coop (it is SUPER heavy though, we've moved it once and wouldn't move it again unless we had to).



I covered the bottom of the coop floor with cheap peel-and-stick tiles and painted the inside of the coop with floor paint so that everything could be hosed down if needed.


The bar is where the girls roost and sleep each night. We've actually learned to put strips of cardboard right under the bar because 90% of the chicken poop ends up right in that spot so the cardboard keeps the shavings clean and allows for us to clean up more easily!

So that's the finished coop!

In total we spent about $800 in building materials, but when you compare to what you can buy online for the same price, this coop is definitely worth the money. Plus, I don't think I have ever felt more proud of myself as I am when people ask me "YOU built that?" Why yes, yes I did. I will take my trophy now. That feeling is priceless.:)


Thanks for checking out my coop! And thank you to those that share their coop because I cannot say how many times I referenced this site while building! :)
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