Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Chicken Coop and Run: the Beginnings




First off sorry for the shadows, the sun was causing issues and I did not feel like moving the wood and barrel!

We spent $25 or so on a 50 foot roll of 4 foot high chicken wire.

The first photo is of a pile of wood from an extremely large dog house and the blue barrel with a locking lid is the second photo. We got these two items for free off of our local free cycle list!

The dog house we actually had to dismantle to fit into our Bronco Truck, it is about 4 x 4 x 4 1/2 when assembled, the perfect size to reconstruct into a coop for our small flock. We just have to make a few adjustments to make it more chicken friendly like a floor, an attached area of nest boxes we can access from the outside, some ventilation and an access area for cleaning.

The same person gave us the blue barrel.......since it is  a little smaller than I really want and a locking lid, not sure yet how I will use it.........but use it somehow we will.

We also have another dog house to pick up Sunday: we figure even if we can not use the dog houses as is, it gives us some free lumber to use in our chicken coop and pen projects!

I am hoping the $25 that we spent on the chicken wire will be our only expenses in the end from free cycle as well as what we already have on hand.

I will get more photos up as soon as we are into the building phase!

3 comments:

  1. Rain barrel?
    Sheila UP of MI

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  2. Congrats on getting useful materials for free! Did you buy hexagonal chicken wire or hardware cloth? Here in the city, we always recommend hardware cloth to people building coops. The hexagonal chicken wire is easy for predators and rats to bite through, although it easily keeps the chickens contained.

    The parts of my coop that aren't solid wood or window are hardware cloth. I did lose a hen yesterday. She died from a liver hemorrhage and there was nothing I could do. :-(

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  3. Looks exciting! I wish we could have chickens.

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