My husband and I built this 4'x8' free pallet coop as a "makeshift" coop for the winter until we had more time and better weather to build our "dream coop". We had about 3 days to get materials and get construction going until the snow came. We didn't finish before the snow arrived the first week of November (we're in MN) but we got it completely closed up and finished the roof. As of 11/15/14 the fence surrounding the coop is half way finished (we also have a privacy fence surrounding our back yard. While we want the chickens to free range in part of the yard, we didn't want chicken poop in our entire backyard. Our chicks come Dec 5th!
We found all of the materials for this coop for free, except for a few items. I'm sure we could have found them for free as well but we ran out of time and had to get them in (like the linoleum floor and roofing felt) in order to move on to other things, and time was short.
Bought:
6'x9' linoleum ($20 from Menards). We still have a large piece left for the next coop.
nails, screws and saw blades
roofing felt ($15 for a 50' roll - still lots left for next project).
wood and wire snow fence (50') - $38 from Menards. We'll still use this for our "dream coop" though so I don't count it towards this project. If we had to do it completely free we planned to use pallets to make a fence as well, using rebar as fence posts.
Free:
at least 10 pallets from friends and stores around town
2 truckfuls of free wood - 2x4s, 4'x8' sheets of plywood, other misc sizes and types (from posting on our local Facebook garage sale page and also on FreeCycle)
black 3-tab shingles (from posting on our local Facebook garage sale page)
nesting boxes - used a onion and potato storage cabinet found on the side of the road
roosts - used a quilt rack found on the side of the road
