The Never Ending (Memorial Weekend) Coop Project! UPDATED!

jettgirl24

Songster
9 Years
Feb 21, 2010
1,026
13
163
Duvall, WA
Well, I finally get to start my coop project this weekend! It's been stressing me out as we only have about a month until we move into our new house and my coop plans are becoming more elaborate every day
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We are taking over my parents' house when they retire to the other side of the state so it has to be done by July 1st as I have way too many chickens who need a place to sleep! At the moment I have 8 adults, 2 teenagers, 2 little chickies and 10 eggs in the bator
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Two weekends ago we went up to my parents' other house and got a HUGE truckload of leftover building materials from their remodel. The only things I'm buying for the framing are some 12' 2x6's and some plywood for the floor. I'm really hoping to salvage some siding and roofing to finish it off but we'll have to see if I can find some on Craigslist. The finished coop will be 12' x 12' and should hold about 28 chickens. When finished the run will be about 15' x 20' plus they will be able to free range in the pasture when I'm home. I'm also going to set up a gutter and 55 gal rain barrel system to collect rainwater. I'm going to run pipe from the rain barrel through the wall to feed into a water bowl. If I can figure out how to make it automatic I will but if not it will be as simple as turning a spout on and off inside of the coop. I'm also grabbing an idea from another BYC member and building a large gravity feeder that will hold 2 or 3 bags of food.

Pictures to come this afternoon after our first day of work!

Day 1: Floor

I learned two things today... 12'x12' looks much bigger in person than it does on paper.... And I really wish we had a nail gun
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Alright, new pics from Day 2 (yesterday). Things didn't go quite as smoothly this day. We laid down the plywood floor but when we got about 3/4 of it down we realized that it needed supports along the seam. My boyfriend was very irritated that he hadn't thought about this before as he hates having to go back and fix things rather than doing them right the first time... But who doesn't
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To fix it we had to prop up the floor so he could crawl underneath and tack up the supports. Needless to say that was not a fun job! Once we got that covered we built the two end walls with the rest of the salvaged lumber we had. That went very quickly and they are looking good. Next step is to salvage some more wood or break down and buy some for the other two walls and the ceiling!

Floor almost done... Just prior to discovering our mistake...
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My boyfriend crawling underneath the floor pad:
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Screwing in the supports:
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Emerging on the other side
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Start of the first end wall:
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One wall framed:
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Both walls framed:
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Covered up until next time!
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Alright... Finally made some more progress on this darn coop we've been working on since memorial day! Summer has been insanely busy, mostly with horse shows, so we haven't done much. Finally started getting the pallet walls up today, still need to finish the second layer on the back wall, then on to the roof and framing out the doors and window.

Front Wall
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Back Wall
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Thanks guys! I'm hoping the back wall will be finished today and I'm buying lumber for the roof later this week. Next job is scrounging some siding... I'm really trying to keep costs under control so I don't want to buy it at the hardware store. At the same time I've had no luck on Craigslist so we'll see what I end up doing. I'll be scouring CL this week in hopes that I find something!
 

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