When I was growing up we raised chickens for meat and I had the job of feeding and watering them. I thought it would be fun to have chickens for laying eggs. My daughters are 7 and 9 and have been helping out with the chickens collecting eggs. Our coop was built over the summer and fall of 2013 and we are still needing to build a run for them in the spring of 2014. The coop is 8 X 12 and we have 22 chickens, 19 hens and 3 roosters.

My husband Randy built our coop and I helped where I could. He wasn't keen on the idea of having chicken's to say the least, but I really wanted them and paid for the majority of the coop by donating plasma. So you could say that this coop was built from blood money, Randy's and mine. He drilled his finger once and got blood all over, ouch.
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I found the plans for our coop on a pinterest site on how to build a shed and we revised them to suit our needs for the coop. The site has extensive plans, material list and how to build the shed. We will also be putting a cupola on the top of the coop for more venting. My husband built our home back in 2000 so I thought a coop would be no problem for him at all. He built a beautiful Log Coop for our chickens out of these plans and we have a few minor things left to do in the spring, like staining corner posts, window trim and building the cupola.

A big THANK YOU to my husband Randy for all his hard work and going without riding his motorcycle this summer to work on the coop. I really appreciate the coop and so do the chickens.

The total cost of building the coop was around $1,500.00. By the time we get the run built and the few other things that need to be done it will probably be around $2,000.00. We did use recycled and donated materials like lumber, window's, insulation and shingles, so it would have been much more without them.

Thanks to everyone that is apart of BackYardChickens.com it is an AWESOME site and we couldn't have built our coop without all of the great people who belong to it and post information on everything to do with the wonder full world of raising chickens.

The first thing to do before you build is decide where you will put the coop, we have 7 .7 acres of land but I wanted it close to our home so I wouldn't have to go far every day to take care of them.

Randy clearing the land where the coop is to be built. May 6, 2013
I wanted the coop back into the hillside so it would be shaded in the summer.


We wanted the coop up off the ground so he built it up on 8 cement posts.

We have a lot of rock in the soil so he couldn't go down as deep as he would have liked in some of the posts. Our coop is located by an old quarry.

The lumber we used for the platform was made out of an old deck.

It is actually a double deck because I wanted the floor insulated and rodent proof..




This is the finished floor of the coop.
This is my 7 year old daughter Ayla and her Silkie chicks. We got chicks from My Pet Chicken on June 26, 2013 and are keeping them in our cap garage until the coop is built.
Randy built the walls of the shed inside because of rain.





The walls going up. My dad helped out that day, thanks dad.







Lily and Ayla enjoying the coop, Randy said we can turn it into a playhouse if the chicken's don't work out.

The roof trusses also built in the shed.
You can see we have a beautiful big oak tree next to the coop, it will shade it in the summer so hopefully the girls and boys won't get to hot. There are also two mulberry trees right by the coop that drop berries in the summer. They love berries, we gave them mulberries when they were a few weeks old and I picked about 15 1 gallon bags of them and froze them. I bring them out and they go crazy over them.

Trusses up and starting to look like a chicken coop.
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If I had to do it over again I would leave the ceiling open, maybe after we get the cupola put in there won't be so much moisture inside the coop.

Plywood going on the roof.

Plywood going on the walls.
Randy and myself tar papering the roof.



The view from the roof of the coop looking at our house.

Roof done, the shingles are actually two different colors. We had some leftover shingles from my stepmothers mothers house that we used for the backside that were Gray and we purchased some clearance shingles at Menard's that were green on the front half. You can't see the back of the coop unless your directly behind it. We saved money where we could.

Wrap on the sides.


Our temporary pen we built while the coop is being built.
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Ayla doing yoga with her chicken Pecky the Barred Rock.

Randy wiring the coop.
Lily and Rhoda who turned out to be a Rodney we ordered all hens and ended up with 2 roosters.



Vented soffit on all four sides.

Nest boxes along backside of coop wall.

Window installed and future chicken door cut out. We got the windows from Randy's mom and dad's house when they got new windows. Thanks Sue and Paul.
1/4 inch Hardware cloth on outside of windows, A washer was put every 8 inches. He also framed out each window with a cut down 2x4 over top of the hardware cloth.

Glasboard put on the floor and bottom half of the coop for easy cleaning.
This is an opening in the ceiling for the cupola to be later installed.

The black material is old tarps from semi trailers and then hardware cloth then rock over top of that about 3 inches.

This was done around the back and right side of the coop to keep out predators.



We put pine siding on the upper half and ceiling of the coop, this was leftover from our house.

The nest boxes. You can see how he built them individually.

Nest boxes.

Cute Rooster cover plate for switches.

Insulating the bottom of the nest boxes.


The chicken door opening with a built out patio to keep rain and snow out.

Finished chicken door.


We tapped into the waterline to bring water to the coop.





Randy putting sand into the coop.

You can see the nipple water system and the feed tubes that Randy made. The roosts are folded up against the front windows in this picture.

Yeah chickens finally in the coop. Randy made the roosts so they are able to fold up against the wall when we need to clean it out. We also added another roost on the opposite wall but is not pictured here.
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Checking out the chicken door.

Lily luring them out with a cucumber. We have a small garden and they ate good last summer.
This is a picture of the underside of the nest box lid.

Nest boxes with two openings.

Lid up close.

Inside of nest boxes with dividers put in that can be lifted up and out to be cleaned as one unit. I ended up putting in artificial turf to line the boxes, the ones I purchased shown here did not fit. We also added a 3 inch board to the front of the boxes so the eggs would stay in place.
The log siding on the outside.
This is the right side of the coop, the electricity goes in here from a junction box located about 15 yards from this side of the coop.

This is our walk in door, still have to put a light fixture on the outside. We put a temporary run on the front for now but I want to put a big enclosure around the whole coop in the spring. The little tube you see between the door and window covers the rope to open the chicken door from the outside. He will eventually install a motorized one from a garage door motor when he has more time.

This is the back of the coop with the nest boxes. There is a 2 foot overhang of the roof, I wanted it that way for shielding the nest boxes and to help with the rain and sun.

Our first egg laid by our sex-link chicken Star. You can see the artificial turf that we lined the boxes with. We got the turf at Menard's, works great, you can take it out and spray it off if it gets soiled. I also put in some straw later.
This is Star, she laid her first egg at only 4 months old.




Will post more pictures when we get the run done, thanks for looking at our coop.
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