I lost my redneck princess George last night

[CountryFried]

Since these pictures were taken, we finished covering every single opening, including the roof, with hardware cloth. The house and pen are built on a platform of pressure treated (and painted) exterior 3/4” plywood laid over 2x6 joists 24” apart and set on prefab concrete decking piers. The floor slopes slightly to the corner where the side cleanout door is located so water doesn’t pool up. The cleanout door is an easy place to rake or shove used bedding out of the pen for transfer to the garden or compost pile and helps with any hosing out I need to do.

The duck house is 4” higher than the pen so that water from the pen can’t run into the house. I insulated the walls, ceiling and floor of the house with pink foam board. The trim pieces keep animals from pulling at the edges of the HWC. The door trim overlaps the cracks around the doors. I have carabiner clips on all latches. The HWC is held in place by screws with fender washers. We are going to put a wood roof on the pen. There is one prefab glass window that cost me about $15, which is totally unnecessary, but when the weather is brutally cold, it allows me to cover more of the mesh windows without blocking out all of the light.

I built the house first and mounted it on the joists on piers. Then, I laid the piers and joists so they abutted the house at the lower height and installed the floor. Then, I framed the remainder of the wall that the duckhouse is part of. Next, I framed the opposite (taller) wall (with the main door) and raised it using some temporary cross braces. I calculated the slope, the cut the vertical studs for the side walls to match the angle and framed the sides before installing the rafters to support the roof. I figured it out as I went along, which is not the ideal, but I just had the plan in my head, so there was trial and error involved at every phase.
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Yes, either will work.

Thank you so much! I have tons of old metal roofing I'm hoping to use for pens and I have 1600sq ft of 1/4" hardware cloth that I got a steal on, so this weekend the building starts (as soon as the gardens are installed! I have got to get my seedlings out of my greenhouse before I lose them LOL)