Looking for some good strong coops that will hold up in winter.

[jeria]

Designing and building my own: no building experience. It's taking some time and effort and am corralling my 15 yo grandsons to help this gramma with at least the roof. The pre-fabs in general had bad reviews, the ones I looked at flimsy and the only one that wasn't (local made sold at a feed store) had only one tiny ventilation slot and was less than 4x4 and nearly $1000.00.

 

[Chickassan]

Holy smokes! For that kind of money you should be able to live in it.

 

[jeria]

I know. Mine has cost me more $$ than I planned on gauging by the pre-fab ones and I didn't have success tracking re--cycled but that part is partly due lack of time. It's not going to fall apart or blow away in the wind though it won't be perfect.

 

[paintedChix]

View attachment 1071279 Mine is built from pallets mostly and I'd wager it's stronger than my home. Including plywood, screws, etc I've probably got 200 in it.I did look at those prefab coops and they are really sad, mostly particle board and the one at Tsc they had assembled was swaying in a light breeze.If you want a strong coop you got to build it.

would love to see more pics - especially close ups...

 

[Rob Tof]

There seems to be many coops available but it appears that the wood is extremely thin. I really do not want to pay thousands of dollars for a coop but one would think SOMEONE would make a good upstanding coop. Any ideas? besides building my own, which I am thinking seriously of doing.

I found my first coop on Craigslist it started it's life as a kids play house. Faze one was to get it in place.
Faze 2 I expanded it doubling square footage. Also added solar lights and fan. The fan runs my battery's down but when sun comes up they charge back up pretty quick and run the fan to keep the coop cool.
Faze 3 I created a run out of a old trampoline I already had.
Faze 4 put a temp roof on the run.
Faze 5 painted the coop barn red.
Faze 6 now I'm designing a perminant roof for the run. My design uses a yurt design. I'll be building it this weekend I hope.