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Has anyone built their own chicken coop/hutch?

celestialsdoxies

18 years ago

Need something simple. Has anyone made a chicken coop with spare wood, aside from purchasing the chicken wire?

I have many 2 x 4's, 2 x 2's, etc., a hammer and can get the wire, but that is about it. Needs to be raccoon and night time predator safe.

I am looking to build one big enough for 2 hens.

Marie

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Comments (7)

Carol_from_ny
18 years ago
Raccoon proof you'd be better off to find either one large dog kennel or two smaller ones and put a lock on them at night. The type I'm thinking of are use for travel...are mostly plastic, have wire doors and windows. You can lock them. They are easy to clean and you can move the birds inside to a garage when the temps take a dive.
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annielu
18 years ago
There's a website- www.backyardchickens.com that has some very good ideas and lots of info. I have 9 chickens myself, and my son built my coop. Go on that site, there are coop ideas and some people can tell you how to make one with what you have.
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Congratulations Lisa on becoming a new chicken owner. Beware...they're VERY addictive. I started off with 6, and now have 850! Like you, I also started as a shepherdess, and still maintain my mixed flock who do great with the chickens. Anyway, stuff I wish I'd known when I first started..... Make sure your nest boxes are on your DARKEST wall, and put some kind of screening/curtains in front of the nest boxes (make sure they can still get in and have air). I just went through my drawer of old dark t-shirts, and cut those up, and stapled them to the front of my home-made nest boxes - worked a treat! Make sure your roosts are HIGHER than your nest boxes, and try and construct your nest boxes so that they can be closed up at night AND so that the chickens cannot roost on top of them at night. I did NOT do this, and my chickens roost on top of my first "efforts", AND inside them, leading to constant cleaning of nest boxes, to avoid filthy conditions. In another area, the nest boxes ARE slanted, but there is a ledge of 2 x 4's behind the nest boxes which they roost on, and somehow, poop lands in the nest boxes from the back - NASTY! Don't buy the expensive "Little Giant" water fountains - the "o" ring goes out rather quickly, so they leak out, leaving the chickens without water, until you figure it out! I've had better success with the one you flip over to fill, and screw on. Easy to fill, and no "O" rings to break. Put your waterers on blocks to keep them above the litter. Hang your feeders but make sure you buy ones that the chicks won't outgrow. Plus, make sure that your chickens have GOOD ventilation/air-flow to prevent ammonia build-up, disease, etc. Free-range when safe - but be sure to lock them up at night. It's so much fun watching them catch their first bug, etc. Good luck
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Comments (23)
We have a 10x10 coop 3 pop doors, 4 bathroom windows (salvage), no insulated but does have siding. Wood floor coverd with shavings. The only place I use hay is in the nesting boxes. I take a pooper scooper at dinner time and scoop, always dry and clean, never smells. Clean their run the same way. No heat lamp, body heat only we live in New England also. Their perches are wide so they can cover their feet during the winter. Sun comes in windows warms the coop during the day nights they huddle. Their run is completely covered. 6 dog kennel sections wrapped in chicken wire. The wire flaps at the bottom and is covered with large size rocks. The top is also covered with double chicken wire braced with wooden slats to hold the weight of the snow. They do have a heated water dish in the coop during the winter. They have a light that comes on just before dark they go in 1/2 hr lights out. Summer doors and windows stay open all day they come and go in their run/coop. Winter just after they go in (same time every night) I close all doors and open again in morning. They have 24/7 grain/cracked corn in hanging feeders but after work they get left overs any veggie/potato/meat/pastas. I warm it in winter and in summer they get watermelon, frozen yogert. yummy. We throw nothing away. Can't figure out how to post pictures.
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I had a little 8'x8' garden shed built in my yard and then added the nest boxes on one side wall. I put one perch about 4' from the floor and another 2' higher and the chickens seem delighted. For the perches I used 2"x2" furring strips. At first the nest boxes were flat on top and the hens liked to roost on top of them and of course made the mess up there. So then, I added a board set at a 45 degree angle on the top of the boxes so they couldn't stand on it. Now they only roost on the perches. This keeps the night soil in the same spot and much easier to sweep out. I also specified when the shed was built, that I only wanted one door, instead of the standard shed double door design, and asked him to make it a dutch style door. This way while my chicks are small, I can confine them to the shed and still have the top half of the door open for fresh air circulation. After the shed was constructed I set steel posts into the ground and strung the chicken wire to form a 16x16' yard, with the 8'x8' shed forming one corner of the yard. As the chicks got older they liked to go under the shed in hot weather to keep cool. My gate was constructed of wood with chicken wire over the frame. Along the bottom edge of the fence, I built up the soil level about three inches to prevent predators from digging under it. Cheryl
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Comments (11)
My chickens and coop don't smell, even if you stick your head in the coop. Any conscientious pet owner takes regular care of their pets' needs, including cleaning up after them. Folks who let dog poop accumulate for long periods around their yards or cat boxes left uncleaned have homes or yards with bad smells. Same with chickens. It is people who totally neglect their chickens or keep more chickens than their space can handle that have "smelly" coops or chickens. Treat them well like your other pets, and they won't be smelly. If you let chickens free range, make sure you set up your yard so they stay off of patios, porches, and furniture. If they poop on that, it can get unsanitary and you'll be doing a lot of hosing down of the surfaces. Baby chicks raised in the house could potentially be smelly if you don't change the bedding a couple of times a day. They also make a lot of dust in the house. I usually clean under the roosts most days in my coop since that is where the majority of the droppings end up, but have let it go as long as a week with no real noticeable smell from the outside of the coop. Typically, I only clean the rest of the coop really thoroughly every few months. If chickens will be confined to a coop for a long cold snowy winter, an owner will need to make it extra big for them to have lots of room while they are shut in in order for them to have healthy conditions. I would recommend maybe doing more research to support your case if your husband isn't on board with chickens. www.backyardchickens.com is a really good online resource to start with where you can get all sorts of chicken questions answered. There is a large community of chicken keepers there, both rural and suburban. Here is a link that might be useful: Backyardchickens.com
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sunflrlvr
18 years ago
Marie,
Here are some sites I favor for small coops.

http://www.chickensecrets.com/info/index141.html
http://www.plamondon.com/chicken-coops.html#Intro
http://www.chicken-house.co.uk/
http://chickencoopguide.com/chickencoops/
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mariend
18 years ago
We built a double chicken pen that was completly inclosed. Used redwood dug done about 2 feet, nailed chicken wire to the base, and burried it so cayotes, lynx, etc could not dig in, also made about a 6 inch barrier around the edges etc. top was heavy chicken wire. Didn't have many raccons in area.
But we did have sticky plants around edge and some animals did not like it.
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mariend
18 years ago
Forgot, at night the chickens were in their house, windows covered with hardwire, again burried wire in ground deep around outside, and we could lock the door, like a doggie door from cage to house.
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chrisha1
13 years ago
My wife and I built chicken hutches from recycled window frames and chicken wire. Elevate the coop on legs a foot or two and make bottom with wire so droppings fall through and predators can't get in. See pictures at our blog, http://www.echickencoopsandruns.com.

Here is a link that might be useful: DIY chicken hutches
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PRO
Vinrac Wine Racks
4 years ago
Always remember to make it predator proof, chicken wire on the floor is important, also if you can around the perimeter just underneath the soil as this will stop the sneaky foxes and mice from digging in around the edges.

The other point I'd like to make is that quite often (unless you really want to do it yourself) the cost to build one from scratch is more expensive that purchasing a coop through a company that ships them.

Not just in materials but also in time and tools that you may need to go purchase. If you've got all the tools and some excess building materials around the yard, then sure it might be worthwhile - there's some good info here:

https://www.coopsandcages.com.au/chickens/chicken-coops/

These guys give you a fairly accurate guide on comparing the DIY or ready to assemble chicken coops.
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