Chicken Coop Construction Help Please

ampersand · 29 July 2007 at 8:35AM

Morning all,
Budget is pretty much non-existent, but I have timber allsorts, netting allsorts and can saw, hammer, nail things reasonably well, in not necessarily ladylike manner.
Want to do this(missed out on a wonderful Freecycle offer a month ago of sproncey ark,yard, extras and hens!)
I am reasonably competent at DIY, can free-draw, make best of things and have a good 'eye'.
Would appreciate ANY AND ALL ADVICE, PLANS etc.
Back garden is small, backing onto farmland and I think 2 girls is sensible to start with(have learnt via vicarious relationship with A's girls in France)
Many thanks.

Lord_Gardener · 29 July 2007 at 9:06AM

Have a look here for some idea's:

http://www.downthelane.net/chickenhousing.html

We've always used ark's!

ampersand · 29 July 2007 at 10:38AM

Lord_Gardener wrote: »

Have a look here for some idea's:

http://www.downthelane.net/chickenhousing.html

We've always used ark's!

I've desktopped this site - thankyou again, and his 'frugal living' section should meet with mser favour,too.
########
Reading more and more of downthelane and liking everything.
More thankyou's!
########
Still on the site half an hour later - can't tear self away!

Triker · 29 July 2007 at 10:52AM

Thanks for this, really useful :T

Lord_Gardener · 29 July 2007 at 2:36PM

Yes, have you read 'How to look busy for the wife' in the Blog - under forums!!

tenzing · 30 July 2007 at 9:23AM

Lots of ideas and information in this thread

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=423623

shopaholic2006 · 9 February 2009 at 1:03AM

For a while now, i have been interested in getting a few chickens for egg laying and as pets for my 2 boys. I have been searchig around for chicken coops, the cheapest i have found are on ebay, but still they are about 150 pounds. I've just been made redundant so money is a lil tight at the moment, so i was wondering if anyone has made one from scratch. I have never built anything before, so i am a complete novice. If so did u follow a plan, or did you just go for it. Also what materials did you use.
Any advice greatly appreciated

Penelope_Penguin · 9 February 2009 at 6:08AM

Hi there! My DH made one from Sterling board. He made up the dimensions based on a bit of research for the space needed for thr number of hens we had

There's an exisitng thread on this, so I'll merge your question, to keep ideas together.

Penny. x

ukjoel · 9 February 2009 at 9:17AM

Hia,
Answer is you can build the best chicken house and run in the world for pretty much free IF you have enough time to source the parts.

The site I advise you look at is an american one called http://www.backyardchickens.com/coopdesigns.html

They split their designs into small, medium, and large and they are a real odbodd assortment of recycled junk coops to coops which are larger and with more luxuries than an average UK house.

In terms of original and quirky ideas they are absolutely fantastic and the great thing is that you can look at the large ones and design something similar to a smaller scale.

Some are very space efficient ie - minimum floorspace but set over 3 or 4 levels and even if you arnt a chicken fan they are really well thought out designed.

Hope this provides some inspiration.
Other points are - try freecycle for wood, chicken wire, windows, etc, sheds etc.
Ebay as well - think old front doors, fishing net, anything wood or old building materials,
It is all out there and if you give yourself a year or so to make it then its amazing what you can put together.

Much more fun than arks or the teeny tiny egglus.

Purple_Sparkles · 9 February 2009 at 12:26PM

I have 5 chickens and they have a 'tool shed' for a hen house, which has perches inside made from small branches that we used as staffs when walking, nesting boxes are made from old bedside cupboards.

They do have free run of the garden during the day but I did make a pen for when I need them to be contained and I used an old frame tent for the poles that I pushed into the ground, covered it with chicken wire and used cable ties to attach the wire to the frame, the door was also made out of the tent poles and wire. Total cost about £35 for the chicken wire, everything else was from my shed or freecycle.

My chickens don't like feeders, they have a large metal bowl for water and a 2" deep plastic tray for their food, they haven't knocked either of them over yet.

Good luck

GT60 · 9 February 2009 at 5:50PM

For food you can use potatoes peeling and carrots or any other left over veg peeling's including green's.
Boil it up and liquidise it and then add a bit of corn or mush and
put it down for them and they Love it!
The ducks don't like it though

Chicken Coop Construction Help Please

Comments

Confirm your email address to Create Threads and Reply

🚀 Getting Started

Categories

Is this how you want to be seen?

Get our FREE Weekly email full of deals & guides - and it’s spam-free