Well, here it is. We decided to take the plunge over the winter, did our research, and away we went! After buying our 6 adorable little peepers from the local feed store (2 Rhode Island Reds, 2 California Gray Leghorns, 2 Araucanas) and putting them in the brooder, we got serious about building our coop. We researched many designs and had our heart set on purchasing an Eglu Cube by Omlet, but just couldn't find any in our area. Buying a new one was cost prohibitive for us, so we decided to build a coop. We stumbled upon the Garden Coop design and fell in love with it, so we bought the plans and set forth to make it our own. We followed the basic design, but made several modifications along the way to make it fit our specifications. Some of the key mods that we made were:
We live right in the middle of a small town on a sleepy street with many trees, so we wanted a coop that would blend in nicely into our park-like yard and neighborhood. As you'll see by the photos, I think we succeeded!
- Adding cedar shake shingles
- Bumping out the nesting boxes to give the girls more room inside
- Putting copper on the nesting box roof
- Adding a sliding door for the hen access, activated by pull cord via a series of pulleys
- Adding a green picket fence!
- Putting vinyl on the interior walls and floor for easier cleaning
- Utilizing a lilac tree trunk that had to be sacrificed for the coop space for the interior roost
We live right in the middle of a small town on a sleepy street with many trees, so we wanted a coop that would blend in nicely into our park-like yard and neighborhood. As you'll see by the photos, I think we succeeded!
