Chicken coop upgrade in a day using all leftover materials we had.

countryladyNH

Crowing
8 Years
Feb 22, 2016
751
2,308
307
New Hampshire USA
My Coop
My Coop
Hi, I just want to share a few photos. We've had our chicken coop for 5 years, and had customized it with several touches inside and out in that time. We had 2 nest boxes inside. and they took up a lot of floor space in a relatively small coop. This past weekend we decided to remove them, opening up much more floor space for our girls inside the coop, and to build exterior nest boxes. We are not pros, but have done a lot of DIY on our little 250 year old house over many years.
We had never done this particular project, but decided we had enough common sense to start building and would know what to do. The deal was we would use only lumber off-cuts and other materials we had saved from our past projects---LOL, we save every scrap of that stuff in our shed.
We built the entire exterior nest boxes this past Saturday, and were able to give the girls 3 nest boxes instead of 2!
We painted it on Sunday.
Very proud of our 'coop upgrade' and wanted to share a few photos!

BEFORE:

chixcoop2 copy.jpg

This was the coop BEFORE. Nest boxes inside, taking up too much space.


AFTER:
coopdone_cover.jpg

AFTER
Using only scraps of lumber and other materials saved from previous projects, we built these EXTERIOR nest boxes. They had 2 inside before and we were able to build 3 good size nest boxes.

coopinside3.jpg



BELOW ARE A FEW OF THE PHOTOS 'DURING CONSTRUCTION'~

coop2.jpg


coop1.jpg


coop13.jpg


coop10.jpg


coopinside1.jpg

Inside.

coopdone5.jpg


coopdone7.jpg

(Even the hinges were on an 18thc. door that we years ago hung on other period ones, and had saved these).

Hope this doesn't seem like bragging, and we know there are so many more talented people out there who create amazing coops but we were pretty happy to be able to modify our coop with no money and give our hens more space!
 
Hi, I just want to share a few photos. We've had our chicken coop for 5 years, and had customized it with several touches inside and out in that time. We had 2 nest boxes inside. and they took up a lot of floor space in a relatively small coop. This past weekend we decided to remove them, opening up much more floor space for our girls inside the coop, and to build exterior nest boxes. We are not pros, but have done a lot of DIY on our little 250 year old house over many years.
We had never done this particular project, but decided we had enough common sense to start building and would know what to do. The deal was we would use only lumber off-cuts and other materials we had saved from our past projects---LOL, we save every scrap of that stuff in our shed.
We built the entire exterior nest boxes this past Saturday, and were able to give the girls 3 nest boxes instead of 2!
We painted it on Sunday.
Very proud of our 'coop upgrade' and wanted to share a few photos!

BEFORE:

View attachment 2839956
This was the coop BEFORE. Nest boxes inside, taking up too much space.


AFTER:
View attachment 2839957
AFTER
Using only scraps of lumber and other materials saved from previous projects, we built these EXTERIOR nest boxes. They had 2 inside before and we were able to build 3 good size nest boxes.

View attachment 2839959


BELOW ARE A FEW OF THE PHOTOS 'DURING CONSTRUCTION'~

View attachment 2839961

View attachment 2839963

View attachment 2839966

View attachment 2839967

View attachment 2839968
Inside.

View attachment 2839969

View attachment 2839971
(Even the hinges were on an 18thc. door that we years ago hung on other period ones, and had saved these).

Hope this doesn't seem like bragging, and we know there are so many more talented people out there who create amazing coops but we were pretty happy to be able to modify our coop with no money and give our hens more space!
Well done!
 
Great job!

Wise of you to preserve the drop-down door instead of hinged lid.
Thanks!
With the windows and the flower box, there was no way to put in a lift up door, which we didn't want anyway. We had to go with the front drop down. We did build a brand new one to fit the opening which was determined by the dimensions there. We were able to have 3 nest boxes with the size, which was great. The former inside next boxes (2) were some that were from the feed store and sat inside the coop. Those took up half the floor space so we were glad to get rid of them! We had leftover stash of materials from all our DIY projects so we decided to go for it! We built this from scratch this past Sat. and painted it Sun!
 

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