Official BYC Poll: Where Did You Get Your Coop & Run From?

[CalBickieMomma]

Th

It looks great but I don’t see any ventilation in the coop. If there isn’t a huge ventilation opening at the back, you probably have to ad more .

There is a full sized door (about 6 ft tall and 3 ft wide) that is open to the run at all times (I live in California and the weather is very mild). You can’t see it in my pictures.

 

[csteeps]

We converted a second hand shed into the coop but the run is built from scratch using new wood, wire etc and all additional run 'clutter' is made from repurposed timber

 

[BarefootinTN]

Amongst other things your flock needs a safe and comfortable home. You may have chosen to build your own coop, which probably required time, money, and labor. If you chose not to build your own coop, you may have decided to buy a coop, or re-purposed an existing structure. Whichever route you chose to take, we are interested in finding out: Where Did You Get Your Coop & Run?

Vote above, and elaborate in the comments section if you chose "Other".

View attachment 2399713

Check out more exciting Official BYC Polls HERE!... or submit your chicken coop to our coop contest HERE!

Our coop was made by David Rice (Dave’s Chicken Coops) in Turtletown TN. He’ll custom build whatever you want. We hauled it > 100 miles to get it home. We set it up ourselves (hubby & me) and built the covered run ourselves. The run is a work in progress. Eventually the rest of the run will be a chicken moat circling the garden.The coop is VERY well ventilated. Our winters aren’t terribly bad but I close off some of the ventilation in the winter. I use hemp deep litter on the ground, no poop boards. Have never had a issue with smell.

 

[Jbt-1991]

In the process of building my coop/run out of a horse stall in the barn they will be mostly free range

 

[Animal Fanatic]

I built it using new and used materials. I am a huge fan of getting 2x4’s from pallets!

 

[NewFLChickenMom]

We bought a prefab one from Tractor Supply but decided it would be too small to keep full grown birds for an extended time. My husband built an area for them to roam in throughout the day that I believe is 8X8 and we shut them in the small coop at night. When they were smaller we would put them in the coop to play in and one of them could sneak through the chicken wire so we added a row of shade fabric that we had left over from the garden. We leave it up now in hopes that it will keep any racoons from trying to grab through the wire (looking back I would have liked to use the wire mesh instead of chicken wire, but this is our first time with chickens and it's been a learning experience)!

We then built a chicken tractor since they love the grass so much. We can't free range in my area of Florida because we have hawks and bobcats. My husband made the PVC tractor for them to roam in while I'm outside with them. It has since been spray painted green, I just don't have an updated photo. I plan to landscape around the coop soon also.

 

[Tawanda84]

Searched marketplace and found nice used coop for $25, five miles away. Bought furniture crating and made a run 16 x 4 x 4, married coop to the run.
About $200, 25 hours unskilled labor.

Footnote: may22 thunderstorm broke two parts of frame, partly due to the new$33canopy tarp and high winds. One end collapsed and had to be re-supported pending permanent repairs. No flock member was harmed.

 

[BDutch]

We bought a prefab one from Tractor Supply but decided it would be too small to keep full grown birds for an extended time. My husband built an area for them to roam in throughout the day that I believe is 8X8 and we shut them in the small coop at night. When they were smaller we would put them in the coop to play in and one of them could sneak through the chicken wire so we added a row of shade fabric that we had left over from the garden. We leave it up now in hopes that it will keep any racoons from trying to grab through the wire (looking back I would have liked to use the wire mesh instead of chicken wire, but this is our first time with chickens and it's been a learning experience)!

We then built a chicken tractor since they love the grass so much. We can't free range in my area of Florida because we have hawks and bobcats. My husband made the PVC tractor for them to roam in while I'm outside with them. It has since been spray painted green, I just don't have an updated photo. I plan to landscape around the coop soon also.

View attachment 2879912View attachment 2879915View attachment 2879913 View attachment 2879914
View attachment 2879916

I would make sure no digging predators would come in too.
The easy way is to put paving stones around the run and coop.
Even better is to replace the shade fabric with hwc ( approx 2-3’ high, openings ½”). Make a ditch outside the run and bend the hwc 1/3- halfway. In a way that the hwc covers the lower part of the run and keeps digging predators out. After finishing the hwc in the dutch you shovel the soil back into the ditch.

 

[countryladyNH]

We initially bought our coop and run made by a contractor from his own little company called Coops for a Cause. (A portion of each sale is given to charity).
We had never had chickens and that was what we started with in 2016.
We immediately set about customizing the coop quite a bit to make it more to our taste and to go with our 250 year old house in New Hampshire.

We painted it dark brown. We doubled the size of the run with a right angle addition. We added the leaded windows, which we also did ourselves. (Our house has some diamond pane leaded casement windows as well).
We built the nest box extension protruding from the coop and containing 3 nest boxes. That was not there on the original coop. We did that completely with all leftover materials we already had.
We found the little antique looking punched tin lantern for a song. The coop has electricity, and we wired the lantern and now it's an exterior night light.
We also made the inside so cute for the hens!
We really love our coop with the changes we made and we think it has real personality and looks nice with our 18thc. home.

Our 18thc. New England home.

Chicken coop with our own customizations.

In 2019 we built our goose/duck coop from scratch ourselves having never built a building of any kind before. We had only a silly sketch we made on an envelope scrap. We built it with no plans, no help, no experience, and with crappy old tools. Wonder of wonders, it turned out great! We like that it compliments our 250 year old house, and it is also really cute inside (no photos of inside here). We even put in a sheet vinyl floor remnant in a natural stone pattern that we snagged at a local flooring shop for $12., so it's super easy to clean! It has 'divided lights' windows and period style iron hardware. We painted it the same brown as our house trim and our chicken coop.
GOOSE COOP BELOW~

 

[Chzikken]

From 2017 (pergola I built and coop kits) to now. Local guy builds top quality garden sheds and delivers, so I went that route. Did my mods to it. The pergola/run was all cedar. Recently disassembled it and re-incorporated materials back into the new design. Still have a few minor things to do to both