The Garden Ark - Step one to life with chickens!

[bren0990]

We are taking the plunge into building our first chicken coop, with the ultimate goal of having a house for 2 or 3 hens in the spring. We’ve decided to go with The Garden Ark, we bought the plans on thegardencoop.com for $25 US which currently equates to $32 CAN. I like that it’s not too big but should fit our small flock nicely. It is also portable so during our major wind and rain / snow storms I can move it into our large detached garage. Also, if my son loses interest I am only out a few hundred bucks which is also important!

We took some initial steps today and bought all the hardware for the project, it came to $120, which was a bit more than I expected for screws, nuts, bolts and latches. There are a lot of screws required for this project however and boxes of deck screws add up quickly. If we get a nice day this week we will go get some of the timber, it requires 2 X 2 (16), 2 X 4 (3), 1 X 2 (1) and two sheets of plywood. It also requires some other roofing, hardware cloth, wheels and misc. items so I figure the end total will be close to $500. I’ll save the receipts and let you know.

Stay tuned for hopefully regular updates and pictures! I have inserted the web page image of what it will hopefully look like in the end.

We are all excited at the prospects.

 

[clarkechick]

Welcome to the chicken keeping world! My first suburban backyard flock was 3 hens. I did have an aggression problem with an Ameraucana attacking my other two so we became a two chicken flock when we sent her to a friend's farm. You will love discovering the ladies' personalities and be surprised at how little work they are. Even if your son loses interest it may not be a deal breaker. You might enjoy it and keep going! I'm starting my second flock this spring with a slightly bigger coop and 5 chicks coming in April. Best of luck to you! BYC is a great resource for anything you will need.

 

[bren0990]

We went out and bought 16 2 X 2s and will start cutting this weekend. I've been looking for plywood siding but can't find it anywhere, it seems to be a seasonal item unfortunately. If worse comes to worse we will just use regular plywood and give it a nice paint job.

I've also invested in a wood stove for our garage so we can build the coop in the warmth this winter.

 

[bren0990]

COOP IS FINISHED SEE PICS!

I never did a very good job of keeping up to date with updates but I'm happy to report the Garden Ark is complete!

I spent probably about $500 on materials, $200 on tools and still have to get things like feeders and watering equipment. This was quite an adventure since it was my first real construction project but the instructions were absolutely great! They are very detailed so that even a novice like me could make it through with very few do-overs. I only started this about 3 weeks ago, working on it evenings and weekends, I am very happy with the amount of time it took. Cutting and assembling the doors and other siding pieces was definitely the most tedious part but even that went very well.

I added a couple of things like a ladder and a portable bottom so I could temporarily move it to my garage but still have a nice floor underneath for the chickens. I used vinyl flooring for the hen house and portable bottom covers. Here are a few pics!
This is my son's handwriting, it's officially Noah's Coop.
This is the double door side, the hinge work and cutting was a bit challenging.
With the double doors open you can see the nesting box and roost inside, along with the nice vinyl flooring.
This is the back with the wheels for easy rolling when you lift the front slightly. This is VERY heavy and sturdy.
This is the egg door side, you can see the slope of the roof for easy water removal, its a pvc roof connected with roofing screws.
And inside the egg door you can easily reach the eggs!
This is the front view, you can see the removable door and ladder I installed ot help them get to the roost.
This is the portable bottom for use inside the garage.

HOPE YOU LIKE IT!!!