The Glorious Free Coop And How I Made It

The story of my custom coop and how I built it for free*!

Two key things to know about me before I explain how I built this chicken coop for (almost) free:

1) I tend to be a dreamer and my wife tends to be a realist. We are a good balance for each other, I make unrealistic whimsical plans and she helps me bring them down to reality.

2) I'm also a scrounger. I'm not quite a "hoarder" but "Pack-Rat" doesn't quite cover it either; I prefer Scrounger. I have a knack for finding useful discarded things and finding value in things that in their own context appear to be trash.

*I say "free" but it cost me lots of time and work and about $7 in one specific material (read on to see what I mean).

The Beginning

When we decided to get chickens the logical first step was to design and build a chicken coop. The original quick sketch ended up being the "plans" and inspiration without much deliberation.

Obviously not easy to build, but I like challenges.  To really pour on the pressure we went and bought 5 baby chicks (that day) and housed them in our downstairs shower. Now I had 5 fluffy, peeping, growing, time bombs that would need to move out of the shower in just a few weeks no matter what.

Pencil: Free?

Paper: Free (a notepad left on my windshield by a windshield repair company)

Running Total: $0.00

After we decided on the square footage I decided to mock up the basic dimensions in Google Sketchup. I've built things this way before and I like it a lot because I can design with highly accurate measurements and I can see what it's going to look like in the end. I can fly around it and really see if the dimensions/proportions look good.

I ended up with an angle of 82˚ on the peak of the roof. This helped it look “cartoony”.

Google Sketchup: Free

Running Total: $0.00

After the basic measurements it was time to actually start working. I apologize for the less than awesome cell phone pictures throughout.

Long pieces are from a friend’s old deck.

The rest are from pallets and shipping crates.

Lumber: Free

Running Total: $0.00

Helpers are important. By the way I am not the person who put duct tape on that hammer. I found the hammer in a field, already taped. I found that sheetrock ruler in a dumpster behind a cabinet shop, some of the markings were worn off where it was obviously used a LOT – to them it was trash, to me it was a nice, 5 foot, free, aluminum straight edge! (told you I was a scrounger).

Safety first! Notice I drilled pocket holes in the outside faces of the frames. This way the siding will hide all the screws.

This is a terrible, blurry shot of the subsequent framing. Most of this was a “plan as I go” project. I knew what I wanted in the end and I knew the basic dimensions but figuring out exactly how to get it there was something I sort of took one step at a time. A lot of what I did depended on the materials I had on hand too.

I added the two vertical supports to the back and front to add strength for the nesting boxes

Close up of pocket holes.

I cut the holes for the nesting boxes with rounded corners. I just used a hole saw in each corner then connected them with a jigsaw.

When I started writing this I assumed I could save an unpublished draft, since I can't seem to figure out how to do that I must apologize and leave this half finished for tonight. I will add the rest of the images and description soon! Sorry about that!