The crates have two doors on them. You can zip tie them together by either door set, I use the ones on the end, but you could do the ones in the middle. [I used this setup to grow out meat birds to ~3 wks, and wanted them to walk as much as possible from food to water when they were chicks, so...
Chicken keeping in the house works for a number of people - they're usually pets in that case, but the breakfast benefits are real. :)
The crates I suggested are 4'x30" footprint. If you zip tie two of them together, that's 8'x30", which is a significant amount of space for one or two...
Since building a coop seems like it's not possible at this moment, have you considered a house chicken or two? It's a bit more work, but an egg a day can really add up. I know a number of folks keep chickens inside at night and take them out during the day for walks and stuff. We have a...
Consider looking at lashed or wattle fence designs and adapting them to use as a coop floor. Daubing (mud or a mix of mud with straw) can also be used to seal gaps. Thickness of your lashing material will determine how far apart your saplings are. If you can't manage to keep less than 1/2"...
If you get some game-based highly predator aware chickens or mediterranian breeds that can reproduce often enough that roost in trees, they may work out better/cheaper than a totally enclosed coop. U_Stormcrow has a "landrace" he's working on in north florida - might check out how he's managing...