- Feb 6, 2010
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Hey everyone and thanks for checking out my new setup through construction, I'm going to call this my "Chicken Journal". My name is Brandon, i'm a cook in san diego and I live about 5 minutes and no freeways from Downtown San Diego. I just acquired a duplex house that a family friend owns for the same as I was paying for a 2 bedroom apartment in uptown San Diego. The best part about it? I get to have chickens! The property is well guarded and sits in a very quiet more spread out area in the Uptown area and and is quite secluded. This spring I am going to be building a Large vegetable and herb garden in my backyard and thought it would be a great idea to start with a chicken coop. So after building my compost heap I went to it building the coop, the Idea I have is build by using recycled materials. The house itself needed a lot of work, and after a couple loads from Home Depot I was left with 10 perfectly good Pallets. So I decided they would make a good frame and started screwing them together.
I than turned to craigslist since I was in need of both 2"x4"s and either planks or plywood. Well someone Else's misfortune turned into wooden gold for me. I came accross a posting for a long wooden fence that had blown down in the last storm. I came home with a truck load of 5' planks and over 20 2"x4"'s. The next day I set to work framing the rest and starting to seal it up.
The Nest boxes were made from 2 small sheets of 3/4" plywood that the neighbor threw over the fence.
Here is the front of the coop
this is a front side view, there will be 2 access doors on that wall
These are the nest boxes installed
Here is the inside floor before the planks were installed
Anyways The total cost of this project is around $30, and that's just screws, nails and the hinges for all the access doors. The goal is to have my chickens next week which gives me plenty of time to build the run and finish the coop. anyways as of now I'm out of screws.
Let me know what you think! BTW how many hens do you think I could Fill this up with? here are the specs:
inside space 3' wide x 4' deep x 5 1/2' tall
3 nests total which are 30" off the ground
one extra level which is 18" off the ground and 15" x 36" wide. the total floor space not including roosts and nests is around 15+ sq. ft. The run I expect to be around 150+ sq. ft. and 7 ft. tall. They will be allowed to free range in the veggie garden when I am working out there. Since I work in a kitchen they will be getting fresh scraps 5 days a week and will be getting fresh layer pellets every AM. let me know what else you would recomend i.e oyster shell and any other needs that I might need to cover in the next week. Thanks everyone!
I than turned to craigslist since I was in need of both 2"x4"s and either planks or plywood. Well someone Else's misfortune turned into wooden gold for me. I came accross a posting for a long wooden fence that had blown down in the last storm. I came home with a truck load of 5' planks and over 20 2"x4"'s. The next day I set to work framing the rest and starting to seal it up.
The Nest boxes were made from 2 small sheets of 3/4" plywood that the neighbor threw over the fence.
Here is the front of the coop
this is a front side view, there will be 2 access doors on that wall
These are the nest boxes installed
Here is the inside floor before the planks were installed
Anyways The total cost of this project is around $30, and that's just screws, nails and the hinges for all the access doors. The goal is to have my chickens next week which gives me plenty of time to build the run and finish the coop. anyways as of now I'm out of screws.
Let me know what you think! BTW how many hens do you think I could Fill this up with? here are the specs:
inside space 3' wide x 4' deep x 5 1/2' tall
3 nests total which are 30" off the ground
one extra level which is 18" off the ground and 15" x 36" wide. the total floor space not including roosts and nests is around 15+ sq. ft. The run I expect to be around 150+ sq. ft. and 7 ft. tall. They will be allowed to free range in the veggie garden when I am working out there. Since I work in a kitchen they will be getting fresh scraps 5 days a week and will be getting fresh layer pellets every AM. let me know what else you would recomend i.e oyster shell and any other needs that I might need to cover in the next week. Thanks everyone!
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