How We Built a Chicken Coop on a Tight Budget

April 12th, 2010 CarrieRusso

Backyard chickens have been something we have thought about for years. To have actually materialized a chicken coop is very exciting, especially while sticking to our budget. We searched the internet for different chicken coops and how-to instructions. We got the basic gist of caring for chickens but there were all these little doubts in our mind because some information pointed to disease, lice and hard-to-please chickens. All of these were something I didn’t want to deal with and I was wondering if building a chicken coop was the right thing to do. So I talked to some people in the area that had chickens and asked them some of my questions. This real-life experience of collecting information gave me a real peace about moving forward and opening up the topic with people around us provided us with access to materials at no cost! We are thankful for the generosity we experienced. There are plenty of places to find used materials so even if you don’t have chicken raising friends with some extra supplies you can find materials on Craigslist or just by being observant.

Buying a chicken coop is also an option. I saw some nice wood construction coops on our local Craigslist for around $200 but an outside run or other enclosure/protection would be needed so the cost wouldn’t stop there. As you might have guessed, we chose to build one to keep our costs down but having it look nice (which is all relative I guess) was important to us and we managed to do this using almost all recycled or reclaimed materiels. The posts and some 2 x 4’s came from neighbors who were doing a small remodel project and we saw a pile of wood so we inquired and behold! They didn’t offer it all to us but we got some great pieces. The rest came from another friend who had a gate from an old privacy fence that I took apart and a bunch of 2 x 6’s that had been used as concrete forms. For the roof, we came across some corrugated aluminum sheets. They originally covered an old well and we had to go take it down. This was a bonus for the owners of the property since they didn’t want it up anymore so it worked out for everyone. The chicken wire, nails and screws were all things that we already had on hand. All we had to purchase to make our chicken coop was 1 more roll of 2′ chicken wire, door latches and hinges. The latches and hinges weren’t exactly cheap though, they ran about $40.

We built our coop with all the things that our chicken-raising friends told us chickens needed. Shelter from the wind and rain, a safe place from predators, a light in their house during the winter (and a heat lamp when they are chicks), one nest per 4 hens and a place to perch. I won’t even mention the food and water, if you haven’t picked up on that basic need maybe raising chickens is not the thing for you right now. Shade in the summer is good too but consider raptors a predator if your area is not covered.

We embraced the existing features on our property and used a dog-house-like structure as the hen house so that was a big part of the coop that we didn’t have to build. This was where we had to divert from the chicken coop plans that can be found online and use our own creative abilities to get things done. Because we were working with used materials we did have to bend the rules of best building practices but it’s just a chicken coop and we aren’t building perfection. To make the door for the dog-house-like structure which is now the hen house, we framed an old window and put hinges on it. This gives the chickens a good amount of natural light which will help wake them up in the winter. We drilled a hole through the back wall which leads directly into a shed that has electricity so we are just running an extension cord for the heat lamp and the light. The same folks who gave us the roofing material also gifted us 2 6-panel solid wood doors. These were taken apart into nice little pieces of wood that formed the nest boxes. We still have a lot of the wood from the doors left over and will possibly use them to make some small planters. We bought a dowel rod because I had heard that some chickens are picky about their perch although lots of people use 2×4’s without incident. Go figure that I would get picky chickens though.  At the end we buried the chicken wire about 9 inches to deter digging predators. It’s hard to tell in the photos but once the coop was up I planted some rosemary, lavender, daisy’s and other flowers and vegetables in front of the coop; I will update in the summer when the plants have grown in a bit. Something you might consider now is looking around on Craigslist for possible structures that could be incorporated into your coop. Look in the “Free” and “Barter” categories and use search terms like; “used lumber”, “windows”, “free supplies”, “panel door.” We hope we have inspired you to begin making the idea of having backyard chickens a reality.

More Resources:
I love the Mother Earth News Publication and website and believe all the information needed can be found right on their site. Including a guide to different chicken breeds, articles on how to raise chickens in your backyard and portable mini coop plans.

If you must buy a book about raising your own chickens then check out these books here:

Here’s a chicken coop that can be purchased online:

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