When I bought my first house, adopting a flock of chickens was never far from my mind. I grew up on a small farm and know how much fun some feathered friends can bring to the garden – not to mention their ability to kill pests. However, I also dreamed of making the property as self-sustaining as possible and figured having a few chickens around would eliminate the need to buy grocery store eggs.
Having done chicken before, I was completely new to this process. But when I started building the coop and raising those first baby chicks I quickly realized that the process was bigger than I bargained for. In this guide, I’ll walk you through the basics of how I built my custom, predator-proof coop, how much I actually spent on the project, and all the other chicken “tending” lessons I learned the hard way so you don’t have to!
Planning a coupe
My first house came with a potting shed that was much larger than I needed for my actual garden, so I thought half of the shed could be converted into a simple shed without losing much needed space. I also knew that my New England property had coyotes, foxes, birds of prey and other predators that like to pounce on the chickens and decided to have a completely enclosed run to keep my chickens safe. Unfortunately this covered run meant I couldn’t use my chickens to control garden pests as I had originally planned, but it also meant I didn’t have to worry. Protecting my plants from hungry chickens.
To convert half of the shed into a chicken coop and make a rectangular run extending from one window of the potting shed, I bought 2x4s for framing and a temporary chicken ramp, External grade screwsMetal brackets and Hardware cloth To keep predators out. I bought it too Exterior grade paint To weather-proof outdoor runs, Low-VOC paint For chicken-proofing the interior of the coop, Landscaping gravel For the base of the run, and tarping to cover the top of the run and prevent snow and rain from entering. All in all, this has run me about $1,000 and reduced my “egg farming profits” by a fair amount; However, I felt the coop would pay for itself over time.
How I Built and Run My Chicken Coop
Since I was starting with a prefabricated shed, my “coop conversion” was a little cheaper and easier to build. Building a brand new chicken coop from scratch And I don’t really need to research Chicken coop plans. All I had to do was build a temporary wall with 2x4s, screws, and metal brackets to enclose half the shed, and a basic door to let me in and out while collecting eggs.
Conveniently, the shed had a solid cement floor, which meant predators couldn’t dig their way in, but I wasn’t entirely confident that my chickens would be completely safe from raccoons. So, I used Roof nails And Staples Attaching hardware cloth to newly constructed chicken coop wall and door as well as potting shed roof and interior of existing potting shed walls. I chose to use ¼-inch hardware cloth instead of chicken wire because it is stronger and more predator-proof, and I found that the roofing nails held the hardware cloth more firmly than the staples themselves.
Once I built the main coop structure, I used scrap plywood to make some simple nests and walkways that I attached to the interior of the coop with brackets and screws to give the hens more places to nest and roam. Then, I decided to build a rectangular outer run with extra 2x4s, screws and brackets, which I made tall enough to accommodate the window of the potting shed and large enough for the approximate number of chickens I wanted to keep (more on that later!).
After I built the basic run structure, I painted the 2×4 frame with exterior grade paint and clad the interior of the run and roof using roofing nails and staples. Welded wire mesh. I decided to put a few rolls Coated hardware cloth on the ground because it was less likely to rust than standard hardware cloth, and then covered the coated hardware cloth with about 3 inches of gravel, which I used a Manipulation. I finished by making another simple ramp leading down from the potting shed window and joining the run and securing the tarping to the top of the run with staples.
Chicken care
Once the chicken coop and run is over, it’s finally time for the fun part: adopting the chicken. But I first needed to calculate the number of chickens that would fit in the coop.
According to my research, a single standard-sized chicken needs 2 to 3-square feet of coop space or at least 10-square feet of run space, and bantam chickens need slightly less. After measuring, I determined that my coop was 5 feet by 15 feet, or 75 square feet total, while my run was 15 feet by 20 feet, or 300 square feet. That meant I could potentially have about 20 hens, but I settled on a mix of 15 standard and bantam hens.
While the coop itself cost me a pretty penny, I bought the chicks from a local breeder for about a dollar apiece. I then spent an additional hundred dollars on the initials Necessary items for raising chickens, such as Heat lamp, feeder, Chick feedAnd A Galvanized tub To keep the chicks until they are big enough to be transplanted outside. As a lifelong Silkie lover, I purchased several Silkie chicks, along with several breeds known for their cold hardiness and egg-laying ability, including Brahma chickens and Australorps, which became my favorites.
I wanted organic eggs, so I chose organic feed for my chickens, but I didn’t notice any difference in the taste of the eggs compared to the grocery store eggs.
results
During the years I kept my coop, it certainly wasn’t a profitable enterprise and I probably didn’t recoup the costs of building the coop myself. Still, I learned a lot from the process and collected enough eggs to keep my kitchen flush with them. I also fell in love with the chickens myself, which made it all totally worth it.
The coop and run were well kept as long as I kept chickens, and I never had a problem with predators. The tarp roof, however, suffered the first snow of the season and I simply removed it. While the coop was relatively warm on its own, I decided to do the deep bedding method Keep the chicken warm During cold winter nights and it seemed to work well.
Eventually, I had the coop up and running for about 4 years before I moved and gave my chickens to a local friend who had his own flock of chickens. I’m lucky with this because it’s not always easy to get chickens to good homes and it’s something to keep in mind if you’re thinking of having a home coop.
What would I do differently?
In my experience, keeping chickens was not profitable but this had a lot to do with “chicken math”, which often led new house dwellers like me to adopt more chickens than necessary. If I were to limit myself to a small flock of 4 to 6 hens, I could build or buy a simple coop. Pre-built shed Which could meet my needs. However, the coop I built was significantly stronger than some store-bought cops, an important consideration in predator-prone areas where weak cops may need to be bulked up with additional locks, bracing, and hardware cloth.
Aside from the size of my flock, the tarp roof did not hold up on my part and would have held up better if I had roofed it with corrugated plastic or metal sheeting. I also experienced rat problems in the run which I fixed by making a rat-proof chicken feeder out of PVC; However, this problem could have been prevented by using rodent-proof feeders from the start.
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