Handywoman Chicken Coop

We now live where we can have a few farm creatures and Chickens are top on our list. We love eggs and Chickens are too cute not to have a few. So we ordered 10 (that was the smallest amount you could order). First I ordered Cochin chickens and found out my order was for all MALES ! So of course I canceled that order, we don't want any roosters for our roost :) ) Then I ordered Black Laced Silver Wyandotte because they did not have any female Cochin's. I was disappointed but that soon passed :). The first set arrived mostly dead or near death. We tried to revive them but it didn't work out sadly, and it was sad for sure. Our next set arrived safe and sound but we did have one that apparently was a double yolk. She was deformed and her twin was attached to her backside but was not animated at all. This little girl lived about 2 weeks then she passed away.... So while we were brooding our new chicks I set out to build a chicken coop. I wanted to be able to walk into the run part and the coop part large enough to hold all 9 chicks happily. I didn't have plans but if you search on the internet there are tons of them. This chicken coop and run ended up costing close to 2000.00 with the price of lumber sky rocketing. About 6 months ago this would have cost about $400. I hope the cost of lumber goes back down but I've never seen anything ever do that so we will have to wait and see if these prices are our new normal. :( So I purchased lumber.... and I kept purchasing it till my coop was complete because as I said I didn't have plans .... While it is not perfect and I am finding things to improve on, our chicks love their new home even though it's rained nearly every day since they've moved into their new digs. Here is the progress, I hope this inspires you to just do it and do it till it's done.... No one said it has to be perfect and if you can see it in your head you can make it real or pretty darn close. You can find a the video of the finished coop here if the Instagram one below doesn't work.  Thanks for watching.

 

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A post shared by Janet Fox (@handywomanshop)

 Here are some build progression images.  Yes I did build them a swing set first :)

I purchased this but wish I would have purchased the one with just 4 nest boxes.... Live and learn...

This type looked the easiest to make at least for building the roof.

Oh yes, I do need to decorate it with gingerbread and lots of signs. :)