First Time Chicken Coop Builds

This is the 11th post in my series on cool coop builds. I haven’t been looking for the biggest or best, but ones that express the heart and soul of the owners that have interesting back stories and might inspire my readers.

I’m noticing more chicken keepers who repurpose materials to build their first coops. The results are so much more interesting and satisfying than buying a pre-fab coop or hiring someone to do the work for you. I’m hoping that their stories will inspire others to challenge themselves to do the same.

I came across this coop and run built under Brittney Taylor’s second story deck in an online group. I asked if I could feature this interesting configuration that uses the existing structure of her house and deck posts to form parts of the run. She assured me that with only five hens the noise and smell factors were kept at a minimum.

I live in Snohomish, Washington, USA and this is both my first flock as well as my first coop. My husband made the plans and he and our son completed it in two days.

We have five hens, but I don’t know what breed they are.

Budget $300, but we already had most of the material we needed

The coop is made from an old re-purposed cabinet, which is 12 square feet, and the run is 96 square feet.

We are still working on finishing it, but plan to add an automatic door and nest boxes.

The second coop comes from fellow Canadian and upcycler, Julianne who converted a playhouse into her first coop.

I live in Gatineau, Quebec and grew up on a farm, but this is both my first flock (three 18 week old Barred Rock hens) and my first building project.

We decided to use as many salvaged items as possible so we made up a plan based on what we could find. We drew many different designs and finally settled on the one that made the most sense for our needs. I did most of the work but my husband helped when two people were needed. It took about 10 weeks to build from start to finish. I was building mostly on weekends.

Budget We didn’t really have a budget. We were lucky to find many free items on our local ‘buy nothing’ site. However, we did not skimp on safety features such as welded hardware cloth and locks on every door. We found used kids’ play mats for free and decided to use them as insulation.

The coop itself is 4½’ x 4½’ plus the exterior nesting boxes which are 1’ x 2½’.

The run is 5’ x 10’ plus the space under the coop.

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