Back in September a friend of mine was surprised with two Roos, a RIR and a Barred Rock. Myself, the wife, and kids went to go see his gift chickens, and while we were there, discussed getting birds for ourselves. By the time we got home that afternoon, it was decided that she NEEDED chickens. Our next door neighbors were remodelling and had a lot of old wood from ancient shelving, a couple of pallets, and two good 2x4s all siting at the curb. I picked through the wood to make sure I didn't have anything with rot, and set to work.
The base is just a simple pallet, on 2x4's, with the deck height 18 inches off of the ground. The front legs are 48" tall, and the rears are 42". The nesting boxes (I now realize that six are overkill) built into the back are a bookshelf that I cut down to fit in the footprint of the pallet.
Here it is with the roof, which is made of wooden slats from the sides of the bookshelf.
Plywood sides and a bit of work with the angle grinder to cut off/smooth out exposed screws.
A shot without me in the way to show the ventilation left on one side.
The pop down doors to get to the nesting boxes.
The finished product (before caulking the roof and painting that is). With a front door/ramp made of privacy fence wood and 1x1.
Once it got cold we ended up insulating it with some silver backed bubble wrap that was wrapped around a pallet at my kids school. It was meant to keep a pallet of cookie dough, snacks, etc cold that all the kids had ordered for a fund raiser, and has worked rather well to keep our girls happy and warm, enough so that they're still laying as well as when it was warm!
I will be doing some upgrades this spring,but all in all, I'm pretty happy for an afternoons worth of work.
The base is just a simple pallet, on 2x4's, with the deck height 18 inches off of the ground. The front legs are 48" tall, and the rears are 42". The nesting boxes (I now realize that six are overkill) built into the back are a bookshelf that I cut down to fit in the footprint of the pallet.
Here it is with the roof, which is made of wooden slats from the sides of the bookshelf.
Plywood sides and a bit of work with the angle grinder to cut off/smooth out exposed screws.
A shot without me in the way to show the ventilation left on one side.
The pop down doors to get to the nesting boxes.
The finished product (before caulking the roof and painting that is). With a front door/ramp made of privacy fence wood and 1x1.
Once it got cold we ended up insulating it with some silver backed bubble wrap that was wrapped around a pallet at my kids school. It was meant to keep a pallet of cookie dough, snacks, etc cold that all the kids had ordered for a fund raiser, and has worked rather well to keep our girls happy and warm, enough so that they're still laying as well as when it was warm!
I will be doing some upgrades this spring,but all in all, I'm pretty happy for an afternoons worth of work.
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