- Jul 15, 2010
- 7
- 0
- 7
My wife and I moved to Dollar Bay, Michigan two months ago. We brought along with us 25 chicks. They grew fast and I figured we need a larger place for them. I'm a very frugal person, so I started collecting waste material from my university dock, I got two huge pallet that was ready to go to the dump site, torn them down to pieces and reused the 2x4x10 and 2x4x4 wooden plank as the main frame of the coop. The entire coop was built using these pallets, other than a $20 25ft x 4ft chicken wire and a $3 blue tarp. This was my first 'large scale' carpentry project, it was really fun and enjoyable. At first the entire wooden frame is wobbling, then I learned a few tricks from elder friends about making solid frame. They taught me to use a 12" by 12" triangular piece of wood, nail it to two orthogonal wood frame, that ensures that nothing moves when I lift the chicken coop. Mom and dad in law was here for vacation and they helped me with the roof frame and the doors. We were worried about raccoons, neighbours said that there is a mother raccoon with 6 of its children wandering around looking for garbage. So i got help from my friend Rob to set up an electrical fence around the coop. So far so good.
With 12' x 6' the coop is still too small for all 25 of them so we took some to a friend's farm at Pelkie, 30mins from here. Now we have 12 with us. They free-range most of the day but they are starting creating problems with the neighbours by eating up their lawn, we finally put up some fence so they'll stay within my backyard.
With 12' x 6' the coop is still too small for all 25 of them so we took some to a friend's farm at Pelkie, 30mins from here. Now we have 12 with us. They free-range most of the day but they are starting creating problems with the neighbours by eating up their lawn, we finally put up some fence so they'll stay within my backyard.
