Recycled and Reclaimed

July 13, 2014: All finished!!! I attached chicken wire to the triangles in the enclosure roof and worked on the feeding station (to the right of the coop in the first pic). You can get to the food and water from the front without having to open a door; the chicken wire goes around behind the top of the station and the hardware cloth is in front of the station.

I'm so very pleased with the coop! There could be more trim work and added and overall perfecting, but I really need to take a break from building!!


You can see the greenhouse that's attached to the enclosure. At some point, I may remove the glass that separates the greenhouse from the enclosure, but for now, I'm done building. The bug may hit again as the winter starts to close in, and I'll work on it more at that point. The glass doors are quite heavy as is the front and back panels. I need to scrounge some storm windows to use as the roof. I thought about using one of the glass panels as the roof, but it was so heavy, that I feared injuring myself trying to get it into position.
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June 28, 2014: Almost done! I put the back walls on the coop, more trim and just need to add paint. Then I turn my attention toward the enclosure. I need to dig the trench and add the hardware cloth, make a ramp with cleats, and dig a trench for the electrical. Whew! This coop has sure been a lot of work!




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June 26, 2014: The shingles are on! I bit the bullet, figured the money was already spent, couldn't find anything cheaper on craigslist and wanted to get them on before we got another hard rain.

Here I'm starting to add the maple branch trim. I still need to finish the interior walls of the coops.



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June 24, 2014:
My recycled coop is proving to be rather expensive:


I put the shingles and hardware cloth on the "returns" list. I may be able to find the 25' length of hardware cloth elsewhere, and I hope to find shingles that someone bought too many of (at a reduced cost to me).
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June 23, 2014: I'm a terrible painter. My hand hurts. And I drip... but it had to be done. I chose a bright white because it's clean and because it won't make the coop hot in the summer. And because I still have plans to trim it out with the branches that are still lying over by the fence. I'm excited to do the arty farty parts but I'm not quite there yet. Still more walls need to be added to the coop in the back and a skinny one on the front where the shower door stops. And I bought shingles for the roof. In the bottom right pic you can see the refrigerator shelf poop boards and the roosts. The forked roost abuts the other roost to form a 90-degree angle; the branches are about 3" in diameter.



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June 22, 2014: Spent most of Sunday afternoon working on the framing for the "el"... placement of nesting boxes, roosts and poop boards. There isn't as much space as I thought in there once you get the nest boxes situated, the poop boards up and the roosts on top of that. I wouldn't say that it's cramped... I have the entire other side of the coop to put things in, but I thought they might want to roost and nest in the dark.

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June 17, 2014: More work on the coop. Used a ton more of the 3" deck screws and the wood garage door as the roof.

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June 9, 2014: The weather was beautiful after work, so here I am again working on the coop... The shower door is installed in a track so I can remove it. (I need to tack in the chicken wire so it's safe when I do remove it for the summer.) The doors were pulled out of a dumpster down the street. They're very hard wood; I had to cut off the bottom and use the router to cut a groove for the panel. I had to make multiple passes so it wasn't hard on the blade, so I hope the doors will last a really long time). The door on the left is tall enough for me to remove the shower door. The door on the right is the clean-out for this side of the coop. I may put a window between the studs and do the rest of this side in plywood. No money was spent on this part of the project. Two shower doors were free from craigslist.

I scored a used garage door for the roof or siding. I haven't decided yet where it will be used. The garage doors aren't solid wood but they have some waffling inside to keep them from warping.
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June 8, 2014: I worked on the coop all day… The morning light comes in from the near side; the afternoon light comes in from the far side. My thought is to install a shower door to allow a lot of light in; I was going to build a long “door” so I can remove it to allow some breeze (tacking chicken wire to the inside of the coop). Also, I put an extension on the side so I have more options (the bookcase was found in someone's alley when I moved into the house). Money was spent on the plywood, the treated 2x2s, treated 4x4s and 3" deck screws.

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June 5, 2014: I slaved all night cutting the legs and bottom of the coop. The logs for the base are 27” long and about 6” thick. I had to turn them three times to get the saw to cut them all the way through, and joy of joys, it was almost exactly level when I added the floor of the coop!!

The dog is disappointed that I’m not thrilled about the idea of walking him right now… Sitting on the couch with a bowl of cheerios feels mighty good! About the tall weeds, a friend said that chickens can choke on tall weeds, and trying to catch a choking chicken is for the birds. Today, I only spent money on some lag bolts and screws. I found the framed chicken coop floor in someone's trash.
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June 2, 2014: Here is the enclosure, now with a roof!! The burgundy and cedar side faces the house, but you won’t be able to see it from the street. The metal bi-fold door and cedar side faces the alley where things are more visible.

So far the total is up to about $58… I spent $6.40 for four Concrete Deck Blocks and $30 for the burgandy shutters (from someone on craigslist). I’m ambivalent about all of the weeds growing up inside the enclosure… I can pull the long ones and feed them to the rabbits and save on hay!!
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April 6, 2014--I had a silver maple tree cut down and thought that the branches were too good to get rid of. Two years ago my friends got rid of their deck wood so I salvaged that too. So I’m building an “engineered rustic enclosure” and will start working on the coop soon. I stockpiled a few things from craigslist so I could build it inexpensively.
The enclosure is 12’ x 12’. The logs on the ground will form the base, and the chicken wire will be not only sunken about a foot but stapled to the logs. I need to screw in horizontal boards so I have something to staple the 4’ chicken wire to… and I need to build a door. There will be a flip-up door close to where the grey plywood square is. That’s the “roof” where the water and food will go.