Hubby and I have seen many of the pallet coops and just love the idea! My goal for this coop is to get it done as CHEAPLY as possible.
We've built many things for the chickens over the years and they've always been smaller and eventually just not big enough. This time I want to go all out. I want a large coop with plenty of room and lots of happy little layers.
So here's the sketch...
We breed goats, so the far right is the breeding shed for the goats. We raise our junior bucks in that pen on the off season. Where it says 'Bucks' is actually a holding area which occasionally serves as another breeding pen. The buck barn is just past that out of view. The whole thing will be sitting in the back yard.
Now my problem is we often don't have enough pens for breeding goats so I figured when we build this, we could have a nice sized coop on the left, a walk way in the middle and on the right a covered lean-to to cover a section of the breeding pen. This way if we needed to separate the pen into two parts, we could have two breeding pens instead of one bigger on.
I have a large 6' tall dog kennel which I plan to use as my run. We have a chain-link back yard so we plan to utilize the 4' fence on the back side too. There are 4 panels, 2 each 6' long and 12' long. So I was going to use one of the 12' sections as 'A' adjoining the fence. 'B' is the 6' section with the gate and 'C' is the other 12' section. We are debating on whether or not the other 6' panel would put us too close to the house if we used it as well in the run. However I'd like to.
We're hoping to build the coop out of free or scrap wood as much as possible. We're getting ready to rip down our old back porch and if there's any salvageable 2x4s we plan to save them for the coop. We've already picked up a few pallets but are really having a hard time finding any. Most places outsource and have someone pick them up. So for starters we only have maybe a dozen and these aren't the ones with the close slats, they're more spaced out.
We discussed two methods of doing this. One put up a shell frame like a stick built and put slat boards on the outside to cover it. Two would be to put the pallets up as the walls, floor and roof and cover with additional slat boards and the roof we hope will be metal.
So that's the plan. The coop itself is planned to be 12' long running right up to the chain-link fence and spanning the same distance the 12' kennel panel takes up. Then about 8' deep. I have a metal 6 hole hen nest which we'll hang in the coop and put a trap door to check for eggs. I want everything to be at least 6' tall because I HATE having to bend over. Our old layer pen was completely rigged and you had to walk slumped over into it to get eggs. I swore if we ever did a layer run and coop again, it would be at least 6' tall so that's the plan. I will most likely cover the run with either chicken wire or welded 2x4 wire and probably cover with tarps to keep them semi-dry and shaded for now. I may even run some chicken wire around the base of the kennel panels to help with rats and snakes. We'll also have to fill the void on the fence which is only 4' tall. So we'll have to cover that with wire.
So I guess I'm looking at some sheet metal for the roof, more pallets, floor covering and perhaps that small section of lenolum in the building can be patched up to cover the floor and keep it water tight. Hm... need to check into that. Anyway, wire to cover the roof and wire to cover along the fence which will be about 26' at least, maybe 32', screws and/or nails, some hinges and door latches. I think for now that's my quick list. I'll fix it when I really get a chance to work it out.
I'd love to hear everyones suggestions or thoughts on our planned coop. I am so incredibly anixous to get started but we just lack the pallets and extra 2x4s to get going. Any thoughts where we could find a good stash of pallets?
So here's the sketch...
We breed goats, so the far right is the breeding shed for the goats. We raise our junior bucks in that pen on the off season. Where it says 'Bucks' is actually a holding area which occasionally serves as another breeding pen. The buck barn is just past that out of view. The whole thing will be sitting in the back yard.
Now my problem is we often don't have enough pens for breeding goats so I figured when we build this, we could have a nice sized coop on the left, a walk way in the middle and on the right a covered lean-to to cover a section of the breeding pen. This way if we needed to separate the pen into two parts, we could have two breeding pens instead of one bigger on.
I have a large 6' tall dog kennel which I plan to use as my run. We have a chain-link back yard so we plan to utilize the 4' fence on the back side too. There are 4 panels, 2 each 6' long and 12' long. So I was going to use one of the 12' sections as 'A' adjoining the fence. 'B' is the 6' section with the gate and 'C' is the other 12' section. We are debating on whether or not the other 6' panel would put us too close to the house if we used it as well in the run. However I'd like to.
We're hoping to build the coop out of free or scrap wood as much as possible. We're getting ready to rip down our old back porch and if there's any salvageable 2x4s we plan to save them for the coop. We've already picked up a few pallets but are really having a hard time finding any. Most places outsource and have someone pick them up. So for starters we only have maybe a dozen and these aren't the ones with the close slats, they're more spaced out.
We discussed two methods of doing this. One put up a shell frame like a stick built and put slat boards on the outside to cover it. Two would be to put the pallets up as the walls, floor and roof and cover with additional slat boards and the roof we hope will be metal.
So that's the plan. The coop itself is planned to be 12' long running right up to the chain-link fence and spanning the same distance the 12' kennel panel takes up. Then about 8' deep. I have a metal 6 hole hen nest which we'll hang in the coop and put a trap door to check for eggs. I want everything to be at least 6' tall because I HATE having to bend over. Our old layer pen was completely rigged and you had to walk slumped over into it to get eggs. I swore if we ever did a layer run and coop again, it would be at least 6' tall so that's the plan. I will most likely cover the run with either chicken wire or welded 2x4 wire and probably cover with tarps to keep them semi-dry and shaded for now. I may even run some chicken wire around the base of the kennel panels to help with rats and snakes. We'll also have to fill the void on the fence which is only 4' tall. So we'll have to cover that with wire.
So I guess I'm looking at some sheet metal for the roof, more pallets, floor covering and perhaps that small section of lenolum in the building can be patched up to cover the floor and keep it water tight. Hm... need to check into that. Anyway, wire to cover the roof and wire to cover along the fence which will be about 26' at least, maybe 32', screws and/or nails, some hinges and door latches. I think for now that's my quick list. I'll fix it when I really get a chance to work it out.
I'd love to hear everyones suggestions or thoughts on our planned coop. I am so incredibly anixous to get started but we just lack the pallets and extra 2x4s to get going. Any thoughts where we could find a good stash of pallets?
