QUESTION: Coop designs, use em or buy pre-made?

[Beau Williams]

Hey yall -

Just joined. Happy to be here.

I came across some great looking diy coop plans and am considering buying them and making my own coop, but I also like the idea of buying a pre-made one.

What does everybody here think?

 

[aussieheelr]

I sugest looking over the coop section from the main page. There are some wonderful plans there and FREE ones at that, with pictures and all.
Pre made is easy but you can't specialize things with it and they tend to cost an arm and a leg.
We built our 8'x8' for about $300 on the whole thing. It would have been that price for one that was only 3 ft tall and would hold 4 chickens at best... the one we built holds 20.

 

[san415]

I ordered mine from sunset barns, its 4x8 and was delivered on a flat bed truck, cost $990 (I think) And I so love love love it and Butch was great to work with. There are a ton of pics on my BYC web page, just click on it under my name at the left of the text box.
There are lots of BYC pages that you can click on that are so interesting. And welcome to here!! There is so much information on here, You can learn so much.

Edited to add shipping was $550

 

[ChickyLaura]

We had a pre-existing structure that we outfitted for our chickens. However, we aren't talented in construction at all. We just bought a pre-fab rabbit coop that just had to be put together with a few bolts. It was definitely way more $ than I wanted to spend, but much more eye-pleasing than what I would have made!

If you're handy though, you could save a lot of money!

 

[Backyard Hencam]

Welcome! This a great site and I learn something every day. We built our coop because we wanted it to look good in our garden. You can see it at the site below. However, if my husband wasn't handy with a hammer and saw, I would have purchased one. They can make them look pretty good nowadays because more and more people in semi urban environments want them. Best of luck!

 

[AHappychick]

depends on how many you want and how much time you have to build. I have bought several small cheap ones (not so cheap) and I have built a big coop as well. anything you buy will need to be made predator proof btw (with the exception of maybe the eggloo and still you would need to put them in the inside part at night or coons will reach in. )

whatever you deside spend some time on the predator section here on byc and learn about hardware cloth and all the nasties that love to eat our chooks!

Welcome