lefttowrite
Chirping
My husband and I finished our coop this week! 
The interior measures about 7.5’ x 11’, so plenty of room for my six girls with a bit of chicken math already factored in. For anyone curious, here’s a build breakdown:
Walls + Flooring
The walls are pallets, with CDX exterior and OSB interior. Floor is CDX atop 2x6 joists mostly off the ground by about 6-8” (the ground was NOT level, much to our chagrin!)
Roof
Roof is corrugated steel with asphalt sheeting between it and the rafters to prevent condensation on the ceiling and subsequent soggy, grumpy chickens. We get a heavy snow load here, so it’s a relatively steep pitch and we reinforced the roof with both north-south and east-west rafters. There’s spray foam in the wavy parts of the corrugated steel to hopefully deter predators. I of course put hardware cloth up top to the east and west for ventilation.
Access Points
Window was a freebie with 1/4” HW cloth on the inside, and the solid-core door has a gate latch secured with a screw-on carabiner. For the pop door, we went with Ladies First, as we liked the solar/automatic option (though it closes waaay too late at dusk, in my opinion! We may recalibrate that…)
Exterior
The run—an old puppy playpen with HW cloth around the bottom and bird netting on top—is obviously a temporary setup at this point, until we get material to build a permanent run in coming weeks. There’s 1/2” hardware cloth in a 2ft apron around the coop (except for the south wall, where I dug a trench and buried it). The light on the outside is solar, from Tractor Supply.
Interior
Indoor features include a shelf for keeping hand sanitizer, cider vinegar, coop spray, and other items within reach, with a first aid kit hung below it. I’ve also installed a thermometer and a battery-operated light by the door for nighttime investigations. Still needs roosts (the girls are in a brooder for the next week or so) and nesting boxes. Interior paint is zero VOC, semi-gloss for ease of cleaning, and white for ease of spotting bugs/mites/other nasties. I’ve also added some battery lights on a timer to give them a little light as they settle in for bed.
There are a few things we would do differently next time: level the ground first, either find pallets of the same size or don’t use pallets, and most importantly, finish the coop BEFORE the chicks come home (nothing like a tight deadline to keep you up at night!
)
Overall, though, we’re feeling pretty happy with this and proud of how it turned out (and also relieved it’s done). But I’m always happy to take constructive criticism if anything’s jumping out at those much more experienced than me—which is to say most folks on here
The interior measures about 7.5’ x 11’, so plenty of room for my six girls with a bit of chicken math already factored in. For anyone curious, here’s a build breakdown:Walls + Flooring
The walls are pallets, with CDX exterior and OSB interior. Floor is CDX atop 2x6 joists mostly off the ground by about 6-8” (the ground was NOT level, much to our chagrin!)
Roof
Roof is corrugated steel with asphalt sheeting between it and the rafters to prevent condensation on the ceiling and subsequent soggy, grumpy chickens. We get a heavy snow load here, so it’s a relatively steep pitch and we reinforced the roof with both north-south and east-west rafters. There’s spray foam in the wavy parts of the corrugated steel to hopefully deter predators. I of course put hardware cloth up top to the east and west for ventilation.
Access Points
Window was a freebie with 1/4” HW cloth on the inside, and the solid-core door has a gate latch secured with a screw-on carabiner. For the pop door, we went with Ladies First, as we liked the solar/automatic option (though it closes waaay too late at dusk, in my opinion! We may recalibrate that…)
Exterior
The run—an old puppy playpen with HW cloth around the bottom and bird netting on top—is obviously a temporary setup at this point, until we get material to build a permanent run in coming weeks. There’s 1/2” hardware cloth in a 2ft apron around the coop (except for the south wall, where I dug a trench and buried it). The light on the outside is solar, from Tractor Supply.
Interior
Indoor features include a shelf for keeping hand sanitizer, cider vinegar, coop spray, and other items within reach, with a first aid kit hung below it. I’ve also installed a thermometer and a battery-operated light by the door for nighttime investigations. Still needs roosts (the girls are in a brooder for the next week or so) and nesting boxes. Interior paint is zero VOC, semi-gloss for ease of cleaning, and white for ease of spotting bugs/mites/other nasties. I’ve also added some battery lights on a timer to give them a little light as they settle in for bed.
There are a few things we would do differently next time: level the ground first, either find pallets of the same size or don’t use pallets, and most importantly, finish the coop BEFORE the chicks come home (nothing like a tight deadline to keep you up at night!
)Overall, though, we’re feeling pretty happy with this and proud of how it turned out (and also relieved it’s done). But I’m always happy to take constructive criticism if anything’s jumping out at those much more experienced than me—which is to say most folks on here
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