Couple days ago, we answered an ad for three free coops. Just our luck, they were only a few miles away. We could see they were in very bad shape but did have some good materials and between the three we should be able to fab a decent one. Our current thought is to take the red rabbit hutch, replace the bad and soiled floor, cut hole in back and build an outboard four place nesting box with hinged lid for collection and cleaning. Add about three roosts, hanging feeder and watering nipples (salvaged from one other coop). Plank for climbing from ground to bottom floor and add a couple 10'x4x4" skids so we can move around easily. Pic of the Rabbit Hutch, hard to see but there is a nice access door this side. Other side Base measures about 4x8', upper house about 4x4x4' cube. This one is mostly firewood but has heavy gauge hardware cloth. We plan to build a new coop same dimensions and re-use the cloth, this will be a backup or quarantine coop. As we're new to chicken-ing ;-) we'd appreciate any advice the group has to offer. I'm a maintenance mechanic by trade, the workshop has most every tool needed to build anything we need. Dan & Vicki
