We decided we wanted a bigger walk in style chicken coop. I am in no way shape or form a carpenter so I began calling all of the storage building/shed distributers and actually found this. It was basically a 6x6x8 storage building with egg boxes. It had been on their lot for over a year and was a little weathered so I was able to make a cash deal for a good bit less than the original price.
I am not an avid DIY person but I figured id give it a whirl due to the high cost of purchasing a similar one. I saved my self about $700 by going this route. This is the first walk-in style coop I've had. Here are all the modifications I made. I have 8 chickens (3 gold sex links, 3 barred rocks, and 2 red sex links) so I decided to only use one side of the nest boxes (6 boxes instead of 12) and hardware cloth the inside of the other ones on the opposite side and just prop the hatch door open and use that towards as extra ventilation. I put two 24Lx18W windows in. One on each side. I also cut out two 12"x16" vent holes in the top of the back wall and screwed screen backed vents over the holes from the outside. I put down 12"x12" plastic stick tiles on the floor and inside the nest boxes. I found a video on youtube and built a pull string sliding chicken access door. For my roosting bars I staggered two 2x2's that were screwed into two short 2x4's that were screwed to the wall studs. Both nest box lids were made from untreated 1/2" plywood from the builder and were badly warped so I cut two new lids out of treated 3/4" plywood and trimmed the edges with 1x2's. A buddy of mine had some heavy duty mat type material that has threads inside of it so I cut two strips the length of the nesting box lids and 8" wide. I used a 1x2 to attach it to the wall of the coop above where the lid hinged and just let it hang down over the gap like a mud flap on a truck to prevent water from running down the outside coop wall and entering the inside of the nesting boxes. Then to finish it off we painted it in a traditional barn color, red with white trim.
Now about the run. It is 8ft wide and 25ft long. I have a piped with horse panel fence that surrounds my property so I just came inside of it 8ft and put up tee post with more horse panel running parallel with it for 25ft then just turned it 90 degrees back to the pipe fence. To cover the run, I built a structure out of PVC and chicken wire. I basically built a 25'Lx10'W rectangle with a 10' cross piece every 5'. Then after all the PVC was glued I covered the whole structure with chicken wire. That was not fun at all! I used an entire 100 pack of zip ties. With the help of a couple people we lifted the awkward structure up and put it over the run. Again the run is 8' wide and the PVC structure is 10'. By being 2' wider than the run we were able to wedge it into place creating an upward bow like a green house. I attached the structure to the top of the run with heavy duty zip ties. For shade and a bit of water proofing we bungeed at 10'x12' tarp over the half closest to the coop. The coop is butted up to the fence and the chickens enter the run through a hole cut in the fence that is in line with the chicken door.
I am not an avid DIY person but I figured id give it a whirl due to the high cost of purchasing a similar one. I saved my self about $700 by going this route. This is the first walk-in style coop I've had. Here are all the modifications I made. I have 8 chickens (3 gold sex links, 3 barred rocks, and 2 red sex links) so I decided to only use one side of the nest boxes (6 boxes instead of 12) and hardware cloth the inside of the other ones on the opposite side and just prop the hatch door open and use that towards as extra ventilation. I put two 24Lx18W windows in. One on each side. I also cut out two 12"x16" vent holes in the top of the back wall and screwed screen backed vents over the holes from the outside. I put down 12"x12" plastic stick tiles on the floor and inside the nest boxes. I found a video on youtube and built a pull string sliding chicken access door. For my roosting bars I staggered two 2x2's that were screwed into two short 2x4's that were screwed to the wall studs. Both nest box lids were made from untreated 1/2" plywood from the builder and were badly warped so I cut two new lids out of treated 3/4" plywood and trimmed the edges with 1x2's. A buddy of mine had some heavy duty mat type material that has threads inside of it so I cut two strips the length of the nesting box lids and 8" wide. I used a 1x2 to attach it to the wall of the coop above where the lid hinged and just let it hang down over the gap like a mud flap on a truck to prevent water from running down the outside coop wall and entering the inside of the nesting boxes. Then to finish it off we painted it in a traditional barn color, red with white trim.
Now about the run. It is 8ft wide and 25ft long. I have a piped with horse panel fence that surrounds my property so I just came inside of it 8ft and put up tee post with more horse panel running parallel with it for 25ft then just turned it 90 degrees back to the pipe fence. To cover the run, I built a structure out of PVC and chicken wire. I basically built a 25'Lx10'W rectangle with a 10' cross piece every 5'. Then after all the PVC was glued I covered the whole structure with chicken wire. That was not fun at all! I used an entire 100 pack of zip ties. With the help of a couple people we lifted the awkward structure up and put it over the run. Again the run is 8' wide and the PVC structure is 10'. By being 2' wider than the run we were able to wedge it into place creating an upward bow like a green house. I attached the structure to the top of the run with heavy duty zip ties. For shade and a bit of water proofing we bungeed at 10'x12' tarp over the half closest to the coop. The coop is butted up to the fence and the chickens enter the run through a hole cut in the fence that is in line with the chicken door.
