Sandy River Coop

It started as a dog house in 2009. I've expanded the dog house (twice,) as I've learned what is important to me and necessary. Important to me: ability to walk inside and do chores comfortably; clean nest boxes; easy poop clean up. Necessary: plenty of roost space; plenty of windows and ventilation; well insulated; predator proof. Expansion 1 = more room; Expansion 2 = 2 rooms; Expansion 3 = more room in room #1 (roost space.)

Expansion 3: The 3rd expansion made my coop overall size a little more than twice the size of expansion 2, it's close to 112sq ft. / approx. 14x8. It's way to hard to list out materials, dimensions and cost because this has been a 10year evolution. I can't be the only one who just keeps expanding coop size due to expanding flock, so I think you get it. I can just say that every time I've expanded, I re-used materials that we already had. I rarely find myself at home depot and if I do it's the purple (75% off,) wood pile. Chickens don't care how perfect it is and as long as it looks okay from the front, I don't care either. It fits nicely into the grand scheme of our 2acre property and keeps me out of the mall (it's a joke, I'm not really a mall-goer.) I read a cool signature recently: "Gardens and chickens are cheap therapy." Exactly "coop building," is fun/therapy for me as well....

Expansion 3 Construction: Expansion 3 made the interior look like one long building with an interior door between rooms. In 3, we used railroad ties again for foundation, covering the floor with plywood, but leaving area under roost bars as "open sand pit," for poo. I made a big door to enter that room and a good sized poop door to rake sand and poo into my wheelbarrow for my compost bins. The hubs helped this time so it's a bit more "dimensionally accurate."

Expansion 3: The 3rd expansion made my coop overall size a little more than twice the size of expansion 2, it's close to 112sq

I used railroad ties with Hardware cloth attached under them for a foundation. About 4 inches of sand brought the area under the roost bars up to level with the railroad ties and wood flooring. Wall frames rested on, attached to railroad ties foundation.
Framed up walls materials from a mini house construction project we had left over insulation, siding, metal roofing. Then I found some old windows.

All I did was put our leftover/found on our property scraps to good use. There are no blueprints or plans and only 1 trip to the hardware store for hinges and 2 sheets of plywood for roof. I just winged it as accurate as possible. With all of the tools and supplies I need, I make it up as I go along. My best friend is "trim." Wherever it's ugly or weird I'm known for "just putting a piece of trim over it."

End Result, Accomplished 2 separate rooms for 1)brooder/storage; 2)Roost's/Nestboxes