The Chicken Coop of the Ages

When I first got back from camp, I took some scrap wood, 2 by 2’s and a Sunday, and built a chicken coop. It really was more like a box on stilts surrounded by chicken wire. I’ve spent a little bit of time every weekend adding on, and updating it in the hopes that it will become the coolest chicken coop ever!

Here is the first picture I took of my completed chicken coop:

(We stacked the pallets around it for some protection from the dogs, because we didn’t know how ferocious they would be…)

After a couple weekends of upgrading, we got the chicken coop into place along the side wall of our hay shed, and added some planking, walls, etc.

You will notice (above) that the front of the chicken coop is one large door, so we can easily clean it out.

In the image to the right, you can see the side of the chicken coop with a little gangplank I built for the chickens to get into the coop with and a string that attaches from the gangplank to the top of the chicken coop. If you pull on the string it pulls up the gangplank to close in the chickens if we would like to.

My next innovation was even cooler. Here are my custom built nesting cubicles: (Here is a good picture of the big door in front being open.)

And on the back side, I’ve got a secret door so I can easily remove the eggs without disturbing the chickens, or having to open up the huge door in front.

Here is another picture of the secret door on the back of the chicken coop:

The weekend after the above picture, I made the front wall and door of the chicken coop solid (instead of chicken wire). Sorry, no pictures of the process…

But all of those additions so far, are nothing when compared to Anna’s great idea to paint the chicken coop! (Which was scoffed at by some friends lol)

Here is our newly painted chicken coop!

Anna picked out the Red color, and I helped with thinking up the design. You can also see a smaller door I created on the front door. (It’s got the “X” on it.) When I added the wood to the huge front door, it became very heavy, so I created that smaller door for easy access.

Today, our chicken coop has 4 doors, 3 solid walls, and a beautiful paint job.

(Today, we received our 36th egg! That’s three dozen in almost a month! And worth $7.50…. so they have almost paid for themselves…)

More to Come,
-Ashton