Ok, my husband hasn't agreed to this yet
I want to have a full plan before I present it to him.
We have an old chain link dog pen that came with the house. He moved it once with the tractor and bent a pipe on the bottom, but should be easy to fix. It's 7 ft wide x 12.5 ft long x 6 ft tall. I know it will need reinforcement/extra protection/roof of some sort (we have hawks, raccoons, coyotes, etc).
I have a tight budget and no building experience. I'd like to do go the dog house route to save money. I will need to either find one for under $100 or find one on Craigslist. I'm planning on putting the coop inside the dog pen. We do have some misc building materials around so maybe I could build a small coop with super simple directions. I can't hammer a nail in straight if that tells you anything!
We live in NW IN, where it does get below 0 during the winter, with -20 F wind chill common. The coop area will not have access to electricity. How can I prevent water from freezing? Or do they need access to water 24/7?
If I did the dog house route, would that be warm enough? Or could I stack hay/straw bales around it for extra protection?
What else do I need to consider? I only want 2-3 chickens. It's just my husband, me and our 2 year old son. We go through a dozen eggs in about a week and a half. If I had more eggs than that, I can easily give them away to family.
We have an old chain link dog pen that came with the house. He moved it once with the tractor and bent a pipe on the bottom, but should be easy to fix. It's 7 ft wide x 12.5 ft long x 6 ft tall. I know it will need reinforcement/extra protection/roof of some sort (we have hawks, raccoons, coyotes, etc).
I have a tight budget and no building experience. I'd like to do go the dog house route to save money. I will need to either find one for under $100 or find one on Craigslist. I'm planning on putting the coop inside the dog pen. We do have some misc building materials around so maybe I could build a small coop with super simple directions. I can't hammer a nail in straight if that tells you anything!
We live in NW IN, where it does get below 0 during the winter, with -20 F wind chill common. The coop area will not have access to electricity. How can I prevent water from freezing? Or do they need access to water 24/7?
If I did the dog house route, would that be warm enough? Or could I stack hay/straw bales around it for extra protection?
What else do I need to consider? I only want 2-3 chickens. It's just my husband, me and our 2 year old son. We go through a dozen eggs in about a week and a half. If I had more eggs than that, I can easily give them away to family.
