I inherited 5 hens from a friend and along with it came a very well built coop and a standard 4'x8' run made of scrap wood. After a few days of owning the chickens and seeing the amazing coops I decided it was time to make an attempt at a better looking run for my birds. I don't consider myself either a carpenter or very handy but I felt inspired and I figured, "how hard could making a box be?"

The Run- 4' tall 8' long 4' wide

I started with standard 2x4s and build two 4' tall and 8' long walls and two 4' tall and 4' wide walls that I joined together with 2.5" deck screws which I used through the whole project. I put support 2xs at 32" on the 8' wall. No reasoning behind that spacing. I chose the wall dimensions because I wanted to go with 8' long 2x4s and was trying to minimize cutting of both the wood and the chicken wire- which is 4' wide.

These steps were pretty simple. I built a door from 2x4s and was ready to staple chicken wire on it. Notice my cooler in the background, which was my sawhorse for this project. That's how I roll.



The Coop
Then a funny thing happened while at work the next day. I started to wonder if I should build a coop that was connected to the run so that I could put wheels on it and put it various places around my yard to keep my grass alive and the chickens interested.

I didn't want to lose any grass area so I decided 24" would be enough space for the birds to be able to walk under. To accomplish this I screwed two 2x4's across the width of the run. Fortunately I had the foresight to run enough width to add nesting boxes, which I inevitably would have wanted to do later.


Those are standard deck boards for the floor of the coop and my middle child helping me on the project.

The walls are plywood. I cut out two doors. One for the chickens and the other for me to clean the coop and replace bedding.


There are two nesting boxes under that lid



The roof is 5' fence posts cut to size. There's a 1" drop per foot of spread for those wondering. The ramp is 4' long with steps every 5 or 6".

DONE!

Well not quite. I added some shingles to the roof since a hard rain proved it wasn't as waterproof as I thought it would be and then I added a 4' wide 8' long and 2' tall run to the back side to provide more space for the birds to enjoy.





Questions? Feel free to ask.
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