Chicken Coop cost

[speckledhen]

I see my photos of the Firetower coop are gone and I can't edit that post so, here they are. Total cost: about $60, mainly for the paint and roll roofing. All other materials were free from a log home builder's dumpster.

 

[5.3acredream]

I'm still in the process of gathering materials for my coop but I'll say this: if you have a bit of time before you NEED to build a coop and don't have that stash of project wood that everyone seems to have (how? how does everyone have extra wood lying around?!)- Go to the big box stores, ask them for their cull wood. It's wood that is crooked, or split, or any number of issues. They sell it for 70% off and believe me, building materials are mad expensive. It is completely worth it to buy piecemeal to save money. I have found that you can find wood that is crooked at 12', but ask them to cut it down to 6' lengths, and now that crooked wood looks mighty fine for some chickens! Or a ten footer that is split on the first foot- hack it off and you're still out ahead. Good luck. I'm just beginning my own coop building journey, so I'll need it too.

 

[pintail_drake2004]

My wife and I decided to plan ahead, knowing about this thing called "chicken math" and such. I poured a 8x12 concrete slab, set all post 3' in concrete, and build a coop that will outlast me. Metal roof and siding, 4 large windows for venting as well as eve vents, 10' skylight, 6' welded wire fence plus canopy net. I set a budget (for materials, chicks, and other stuff) of $2000 and the majority of that was in the metal and 12' timbers for the attached 600sqft run. We did the work ourselves (I use to work construction), and enjoyed doing it and teaching my wife how to build something.
Knowing we built something for our livestock that will stand the test of time if very rewarding in my opinion. Now, we got all the stuff to run water and electric to the coop too, But I haven't got that far yet. Is water and electric required? No, but it makes it really nice! What little scrap we had left over, we built a poop board for under the roost. I made it removable on the off chance I'd ever need to, I wanted to make life easy on us.

 

[Birdinhand]

there has been some great advice given already! if you have lots of time and are willing to roll your sleeves up, you can do it on the cheap. If you don't have a lot of time, you can spend anywhere between $500 and $5,000.

Instead of worrying about it looking super fancy, I would focus on making it robust. a lot of heart ache comes from folks cutting corners only to find that the local predators turn their coop into a buffet for their personal dining pleasure.

1/2" hardware cloth is about the only thing that seems to hold up to the test of time. it keeps the rats out, and if you can keep the rats out, you pretty much keep everything else out. working with hardware cloth is not exactly fun, but it's really the one thing you tend to have to buy and is worth it's weight in gold. whatever you do, stay away from the stuff called Poultry netting, it's a sick irony that it's named that, it's utterly useless for keeping predators out. at best it is good for partitioning inside the coop.

to build with hardware cloth, you frame out the entire coop first, then fasten the hardware cloth to the framing. the framing should be slightly closer together than the edges of the hardware cloth, to allow for a couple of inches of overlap for fastening the hardware cloth with "U" nails/fencing nails. you can use a long screw and a washer as a turnbuckle to put tension on the fencing as you go, to make it nice and taught before you nail it down.