My first coop...a pallet coop.

[stubbornhill]

Quote:
Ok, so 4 square feet per bird. Not cubicfeet. I keep hearing cubic feet and square feet used interchangebly. Ok, so using the current layout of my floor as it is in the picture. it is 10.25' Long by 3' Wide and thus 30.75 square feet and gives me 3.4 square feet per bird. Hmmm, I have two birds too many.

Sorry Flyboy! I did mess you up with the whole cubic ft, square ft. Sounds like you are on the right track now with some added help!

 

[schmism]

my old coupe (as my pic) is 5x8

it always liked 8-10 birds. 12 was starting to get full and at 14 we would start moving some back to the other coupe.

 

[sunnysongbird]

Nice! Can't wait to see the finished result.

 

[Flyboy718]

Quote:
Ok, I think I gotcha now. Right now the way I have those three pallets that make up one wall joined together as one complete wall is by the 1X4's nailed on the top's. If you look at the pick you can see them. But, I understand what you are saying about nailing 2X4's inside the pallets to help join them together for horizontal strength. The whole wall will still sway though as it does now. I am going to go up at least with another row of a partial pallet on top of the pallets I already have now. Wasn't really concerned about the gap that will be created between the courses of pallets by the 1X4's because it is the same all the way around and will eventually be covered with particle board as the skin. But, I could remove those 1x4 joiners and use them on the inside of the pallets to join them together instead of on top, I am going to look at that this evening when I get back to work on it.

 

[ChickInDelight]

I have read - for cleaning purposes - make it small enough to reach all corners or tall enough to walk inside.

The coop looks ample big to me for 9 if they have a large run or free-range.

My 4 free-range darlings go into their hutch every night. I was told the hutch is only adequate for 2 birds, but my girls all pile up in the corner together. They only use 1/4 of the space in this wretched heat.

Forget formulas and use your best instinct.

I am also starting pallet homes in hopes of keeping my costs WAY down.

 

[Flyboy718]

Did a little more work this evening. Got a late start, so I only got the back side wall on. And then I played around with roof ideas. These two pallets are not fastened to the coop they are just sitting there; so I thought about doing this and finishing it out but I have no idea how to fasten these two pallets together or to the wall. These particular pallets I am using here as an example for the roof have three 2X4's running vertically and then the smaller thinner boards are running horizontally. Any ideas on how to finish this baby out? Another course of pallets all the way around and cap it off with a simple roof, pallets on an angle? Or try to figure out something with making a roof the way I have it in the picture? If I go another course of pallets that will make it 84" of head room from the floor to the underside of the roof. If I use the roof style in the picture it will only be about 5' high from floor to center of roof. Let me know what you think and how I should proceed from here. Thanks.

 

[auto5man]

Going back to that wobbly wall issue. In your picture you have looks like 1x4's laying flat across the 'top' of the pallet wall. I would take those off and replace (the full length all walls) with a 2x4 screwed in. Saw a picture of this a few minutes ago, I will hunt around and try to find it again and post link. If I were building this way I would actually do the same treatment on the floor as well, so the base of your pallet wall would be screwed into a 2x4 instead of the pallet floor, and then the pallet walls topped with 2x4's also. This would raise the height of your wall 3 inches. Too late for you to put a 2x4 sill down like this, but you can certainly top your 'walls' with it. Seems to me it would take care of that wobbly issue. I'll look for the link...I really like your progress so far.

To respond to the guy questioning the actual savings using the pallets as 'framing' ( and I don't mean this in a flaming way at all), you raise a valid point. It all depends on how dedicated you are to saving a buck, you can use pallets for 100% of your coop (walls, 'studs', siding, roof rafters, roof boards, etc.) and save a bundle. I am doing exactly that. Some people use pallets as 'structure' or framing for walls then use conventional siding as you mentioned, but some use pallets for most of the structure. If I were building using Flyboys method and trying to save the most money possible, I would not attach siding over the pallet walls, I would fill in the gaps vertically by tearing some pallets down and ripping them on the tablesaw to fit the gaps left between the pallet boards. Some question the extra time and effort it takes building with pallets, worth the trouble? For me it is, I have plenty of time and sort of challenged myself to build not just as cheaply as possible but DIRT CHEAP.

 

[auto5man]

Found the link...click on "photo 5"

http://www.oklahomahistory.net/chickencoop.html

this is the link to the actual photo...

http://www.oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos9a/ChickenCoop051709b.jpg

hope this helps.

 

[AZBootsie]

Quote:
Ok, so 4 square feet per bird. Not cubicfeet. I keep hearing cubic feet and square feet used interchangebly. Ok, so using the current layout of my floor as it is in the picture. it is 10.25' Long by 3' Wide and thus 30.75 square feet and gives me 3.4 square feet per bird. Hmmm, I have two birds too many.

Impossible to have too many birds!!! just to little coop.....

 

[BigIslandChicks]

I think its great to see others using free recycled materials to build stuff!

looks like your coop is coming along nicely. i think the roof set up in the picture looks nice but i would want more room for you to be able to get in there and clean, etc... unless your only 4 ft. tall of course then youll have plenty room for walk in.
DH and i are in the middle of building our own pallet coop - a bit bigger bc i plan on more birds, of course

, the big coop is 8ftX 8ft and not sure how tall yet but we have the bottom row of pallets on all the way around with a space for my door and a space for the chicken run door. luckily i wont have to put real walls on due to location, just chicken wire all the way around. but i am having the same problem with figuring out what to do next of course - as we are just building as we go with no plans and are not builders.

we did already complete a mini coop for the bantams out of 2 pallets and a plywood floor up off the ground - came out so cute im thinking of building a few more mini coops

dont tell DH though -

Im loving using the pallets for stuff - next after the big coop will be a pallet compost area somewhere in the yard -

GREAT JOB - will be checking back for more pics as you go