Hart's Chick Shack

After a long absence from Chickens, we started off with four the week before Easter, That grew to thirty two birds within the next two weeks. So we had to get to work on a Chicken Shack. After looking around at Ideas most of them from BYC, I started on this Chick Shack. I purchased ten 2x4's and eight 2x6's for the floor frame and the window frames. All of the rest of the materials are from pallets or other salvage materials. I put FRP panels over the floor boards and topped with sand, which has been easy to keep clean and dry. Made Feeder from stock pan and five gallon bucket. Water supplied with gallon jugs with nipple waters and a four nipple water point in the run supplied by a rain barrel. Coop size is 8'x8'x8', Run size is 12'x36' with metal chicken wire for the sides and plastic wire upper size and deer netting on the top. Blue barrel is a Black Soldier Fly composter, which is producing alot of BSF grubs at this moment. We will see how all of this works out..

These last pictures may be unsavory to some but they are of the black Soldier Fly Composter, I have a good colony going now and will get 25 to 100 grubs a day that will crawl off. They will probably consume 8 lbs of food a week or more, i put in a full 5 gallon bucket 4 days ago and all of it is gone, i threw a yellow and zucchini squash in there this morning to see how they eat those. Whatever scraps the dogs or chickens don't get goes into there, even a couple of culls i had to make one meat with leg problems and a keet that I think broke his neck. If i made another one i would probably do it with a big trash can with a lid, several examples on the youtube.

Great coop! Thanks for showing the different stages of construction. I really like the fact that you used pallets.

Love the design. What's the blue thing under the waterer in the second to last picture - something to keep the coop floor dry?

I hope your nest boxes start filling up soon!

Wow! Great pallet coop! Makes me take a little more heart in the one I'm working on - link in my signature. Only thing that's bothering me with mine is the fact that it certainly isn't level! But I don't think the kids will mind. I especially like your ladder! I was thinking about using a pallet for that, too...still planning as I go. I'm cutting 2 matching pallets in half to form an 8' long, 22" wide poop tray. Been working on nesting boxes, but like the appearance of your 5-gallon buckets...much easier to "build".

Now I'm thinking I should go back to my original plan and raise the coop a couple of feet off the ground - I was trying to use pallets for the floor, but couldn't figure out how to make a pallet floor stable enough for me to walk on for cleaning. Any thoughts? Might have to go ahead and build a floor w/2x4s and joist hangers - although it appears that you didn't use joist hangers. One question...I also stood my pallets on end, as you can see...how did you anchor them to the floor, since the pallets don't have 2x4s on the ends?

I'm also trying to get as much info as possible on an automatic watering system, using a "rain barrel" (sure wish it would rain here!), PVC pipe and nipples. Could you give a little more detail - and maybe some pics - of how you have your system set up? Everyting looks so operable!

Thanks for sharing - have fun with the birds! Have a great day, and God bless!

Looks good!

I've tried working with pallets in the past, nails seem to bounce off them!

How do you nail or screw these together?
Air nailer? Battery/electric drill screw driver?

Or just a BIG hammer?

I think the rain barrel is great idea. Is the rainwater going to be safe enough for them to drink? If so, I am going to use a system like yours. I can get the barrels on Craigs List for $8. Not a bad investment.

Great building job.

Lonnie N TN

Fishbone said:

Looks good!

I've tried working with pallets in the past, nails seem to bounce off them!

How do you nail or screw these together?
Air nailer? Battery/electric drill screw driver?

Or just a BIG hammer?

Click to expand...

I drill holes slightly smaller in diameter than the deck screws I'm using to make it easier to put them together. I'm using primarily 3" deck screws, so I drill the holes about 2" deep, so there's still wood for the screw to bite in to. But you're right - nails bounce off the weathered pallets, and screws just won't go in without a starter hole! Oh, I use a battery-operated drill.

I've used rain barrels before, make sure they are food grade barrels...and didn't hold something like pickles!
Be careful buying used barrels.
A lot of chemicals come in blue barrels, the chemical can permeate the plastic, resulting in poisoning your birds.
The rest of your plumbing should also be food grade...garden hoses have been proven to release chemicals into the water...not like when we young! Modern garden hose has been manufactured with more and different chemicals. Keep it away from your food source!

I raised pigeons and used the rain gutters of the coop to collect the rain water, used paint filters at the opening to trap any large particles and keep insects out.
If your roof is tar shingles, a small amount of petroleum will be present in your water!
My coop had tin roofing.

You should test the water to make sure it's neutral, (Read up on this...it's easy, like operating an aquarium or pool)
I used pool chlorine tablets to balance the water, it's easy to calculate the amount, most of the time I needed to cut one in half.
DON'T use bottled chlorine like laundry bleach!

"I've used rain barrels before, make sure they are food grade barrels...and didn't hold something like pickles!"

Hey, Fishbone! Why not pickles? I follow the rest of what you say, but why not a 5-gallon pail that had pickles in it? That's what I was thinking of using...

Thanks Andy for the tips on pallet construction!
Duh, I'm going to look closer at that pallet dumpster we have at work...might be the source for a chicken coop AND a 12x20 shed!

Pickle barrels will ALWAYS smell like pickles...but it might be good to get a start on pickled eggs! LOL
Which brings to light another ODD way I think...what if I feed them bar-b-q sauce?
Nah, they'd still taste like chicken but I'd have a mess with all that red chicken poop!!