Looking for a simple coop made from plywood.

UtePassChickens said:

this is what we threw together, the bottom half is plywood the rest is scrap pallets and wood scavenged alot from where we people illegally dump off the highway. i then cut holes in it and stuck 5 gallon buckets threw for nesting boxes. once rainy season over and beffore our chicks are old enough to lay...i plan on gluing Pine bark and a thin slice of log end to each bucket to insulate them for winter and make them darker for hopefully more eggs

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Very creative! I have no scraps and no access to pallets either .

Mine isn't quite completed so no pics.
But it is 4'X8'. 4' tall in the back and 5' tall in the front.
We framed it with 2X2's. It has 1.5" Rtec foam insulation throughout the walls.
The roof over hangs about a foot all the way around.
A large access door on one side for acccess and cleaning etc.
A small door into the run in the back.
I'm not a good carpenter but have some friends who are.
So I got one of them to bring his tools over and help me.
I first went over my ideas with him and he gave me a list of what to buy.
Then we built each side as a separate panel and connected them.
It took us two days to build the the main coop though I still need to add a window and some vents.

If you want a cheap, simple plywood house, consider an A frame coop (search BYC or Google it). Put the roost on the back and leave the front open or only screened in. Face the open end south and put it on a well drained site. Two sheets of painted plywood for the roof and scrap boards across the back and to frame a door or the opening. Adequate protection with good ventilation for a few birds. Dirt floor and pile in the litter. When it gets full, clean it or move it. About as cheap and easy as it gets. Won't win any prizes for looks but the birds might not complain about that if it's dry, out of the wind and has good ventilation.

A slightly more elaborate version would be in the range of 8' x 8' and would use 4 sheets of plywood for the roofing and an additional sheet of plywood as 2 foot side walls to create more interior volume, but would need a bit more in the way of framing lumber. This would double the space and capacity.

Here is a simple design with little waste.



https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/1010000/2-chicken-coops-in-1-weekend

lol i been noticing that as well...at night time anyway during the day they evenly space out on a 5' roost (5 7.5week old) but at night time three huddle in the corner and two get in the bottom right bucket nest just above the other three...its cute because every night the two in the bucket and three on the floor seems to alternate.

oh take pics of the process! I wish i had took more!

oakleyguy89 said:

Very creative! I have no scraps and no access to pallets either

.

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Pallets can be obtained easily ask your local feed store and the like. nowadays some will try and sell them, but other great places for free lumber, other than illegal roadside dumps....store and business remodels (the little office parks), you will see the large trash trailors parked out front of them(often the lumber sticking out the top, they often throw away alot of good lumber - just ask one of the contractors, I never been told no...this drives my wife nuts but honestly cant see buying something if someone taking it to the landfill anyway! at our new place we are lucky for we have a creek that floods often, so we get lumber often in the form of broken bridges and what not

oakleyguy89 said:

I would cut out a couple Windows on that plan. I forgot to mention that my chickens free range everyday from 6am til 9pm so I'm not going to keep them inside there, it's just a safe house for them at night. I will look into a garden shed. I currently have one but it's used for all my yard work stuff.

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Good.
Even though they're outside every day, they're still in that box at night breathing ammonia and bad air. In winter that can be as much as 16 hours depending on where you live.

The garden shed is a good idea but will still likely need windows added.

Oakley Guy, did you choose a coop build? If you haven't yet, I just want to say that the keep it simple coop looks great to me. Of COURSE you can add windows! If you put them on the lee side, you can make them of mesh and not even cover them. (Mine in my hoop coop are uncovered mesh, and the chickens do FINE in northern Colorado.) I have used deck boxes about this size as huddle/overnight shelter, and as many as a dozen LF LS have crammed themselves into a single box (rather than use the several I provided them). Not recommending it, though.

Some things about this basic coop: if you notice in the photos, it is located under a covering in a pen. Using it with overhead protection allows for the lid to be open even in winter, which is absolutely the best way to ventilate, essential to keeping your birds alive, in both summer and winter. In one of my coops, there is an opening - a pop door to a run, actually - on the bottom, on the west side; there is a mesh window in each of two man doors opening to the south. That is ALL. And the ventilation in this coop is superb: cool air comes in from the bottom and exits as warmer air at the door openings. A breeze is actually CREATED with this arrangement. This is a bigger coop that came with the property, btw. For my deck box coops, I pounded 3' rebar stakes in the ground to form support for the pvc pipe looped over the boxes, and attached tarp to cover. This allows me to keep the lid to the box cracked open for ventilation in the summer AND in winter.

Another thing about the coop: the second version is sloped, and I'm guessing this was to give the rooster a little more room to flaunt his magnificent tail. BUT, roosters sleep with their tail DOWN, so the higher back isn't really needed for that. It's not really high enough to shed snow, either, and if it were, it would all be falling down to the front, not fun if you don't like wading through puddles /snowbanks to service your coop after a good precipitation. Again, a cover over your coop will solve a lot of that problem. You can use the first iteration and save on waste plywood. You could also use the second iteration and slope the roof to the back instead of to the front. Depends how high you want to be lifting food and water into your coop.

I like to use external feed and water vessels that open into the inside of the coop - easy with horizontal nipples and the popular bucket feeders; these make it especially easy to service the coop in winter. Like externally mounted nesting boxes. I love Ute Pass's bucket nest boxes.

Consider using a lighter IR reflective material for the lid/roof.

I am not too sure about tipping the coop over, hauling it around, and emptying into a compost. Making the front into double doors that swing outward makes sense to me for cleaning, but there goes "simple." Also, in the interest of reducing simplicity, I would have it be essentially without a floor, having just earth and deep litter for the bottom. Design is everything with this - and research.

I HAVE NOT built this coop; I have a lot of used plywood about, and think it's a good doable design for some of my needs. It's a good starte coop, it will serve a breeder group, it can be an isolation/recuperation coop, it can be a brooder coop, and it can provide overnight shelter for several chickens in winter - if you take care of the ventilation issues and any other protection it might need from the elements. I like the clear directions. Am not that handy myself, but I think I could make one of these. You can always use the excess plywood for making feed and water stands, maybe nest boxes, and you'll be glad you have it.

First i must say my 2 yr old will eat the yolk and all from one of chickens but the store bought eggs he spits out the yolk....so if some one asks if there is a difference...there is the response from someone with all their taste buds still! Back to the living quarters. my kids and I built an outdoor roost which the chickens love and use daily. the roost is the coop is extremely important of course, however an outside one if they are an enclosed run and room permitting it offers them perching with a view. We made a three sided pyramid with different levels. I have recently added a small solar light to its top to attract bugs through the evenings for them to munch at sunrise.
I need to down load a better newer picture, it is right behind my wife. We covered the whole top with poultry netting and so far so good. We have a large black bear that strolls by the pen daily, not to mention countless fox, coyote, bob cat lynx and mt lion. oh we get a pair of eagles that come by once in while and perch above the run, watch for a little it then fly off hungry...