We started keeping chickens (after 4 years of research), when a neighboor brought home a young male that her kids picked up while he was trying to cross a busy highway. No Joke. My husband was able to quickly put together an area for him to roost in with 1 role of chicken wire, left over 4 x 4s from a construction site as well as a nice piece of plywood for the door. Hinges and latch were left overs in the shed, as were nails and large staples to hold chicken wire in place. we also were able to cull proper size tree limbs from an extremely large oak tree in our front yard. This needed to be done anyway to prevent roof damage. Completely enclosed, a left over tarp from previous roof damage made a great cover for chicken wire on the top of the coop. Once we got hens, we were able to expand a nesting area under the house, which is raised 5 feet off the ground. This gave our chickens a 8 x 15 foot roosting area, which they could stay in if needed and an 8 x 8 foot nesting area with roosting poles in it as well. Scrape wood from construction sites were used to build two shelves, houseing 6 nesting boxes made out of repurposed milk crates. We added lips to each shelf, so three boxes per shelf. Also used repurposed wooden fencing and lattice work to "beautify" our franken coop. Fenced off an area of the yard for free ranging and another area for kitchen garden using the same method. Garden area is next to free range area so hens can go into garden area after harvest and clean up and fertilize area, just have to make sure tomato plants and anything else harmfull to hens is removed first. Great for organic gardening, less pesty bugs in garden . hope this helps
