Awesome Chicken Coop From (Almost) 100% Reused/Repurposed Materials

Hi Everybody,

This is my first instructable so please take it easy on me in the comments. If you're here, I just wanna say thanks for clicking. So, if you're a person who regularly hits up CL's free section, and you live in a reasonably well populated suburban place in the US (and perhaps many other regions of the world, but this is my frame of reference), you'll see a lot of this stuff regularly if you just wait long enough. Just about all of these materials can be sourced over the course of a few weeks, maybe at most a few months. But, of course, if you don't find a particular part through opportunism, you can always just buy or make most parts another way.

The intent of this project was to demonstrate that a project like this can be done without the need to buy lots of new materials, when there's already so much good stuff out there that simply gets tossed out (or given away on CL, which I do appreciate). So, last summer, I got some of my friends' kids together and we set out to build a coop and an incubator, and raise a bunch of chickens, in a very sustainable way (and we're now on our third generation after one year). Their food is a mix of grass/weeds, locally grown corn, scraps and chicken feed (so we're not doing everything for free or on the cheap). And, they're pumping out an average of 6 eggs a day.

If you're town allows chickens, I highly recommend this experience. It's a great education for the kids, to learn how to be a little bit more green/sustainable in life -- and the eggs are way better and cheaper than you can get at a store.

And please feel free to check out the video, linked in this section, if you prefer that versus reading. Thanks again for being here.

For this build I used these tools:

• Hammers, nails, various wood/drywall screws
• A nice rechargeable 18V drill
• Table saw for ripping
• Shovels for digging the fence post holes
• Jigsaw for making fast cuts outside
• Heavy duty staple gun with long staples
• Screwdrivers & pliers or nail removers
• Standard toolbox of typical tools to help out in certain situations

I sourced nearly all of this material on CL, but some I found on the street, or repurposed from other projects

• Lots of scrap planks for the sides, trusses, screen windows and door.
• Plywood for the roofing and base/floor, and misc uses like a nesting box with multiple divisions
• Pallets
• Hinges
• Window locks from old windows
• Weather beater / weather proofing stain and or varnishes (found in my own & friends' basements)
• Concrete / cinder blocks
• Pressure treated fence posts
• Bricks to use along exterior fencing
• Specialized pallets with heavy duty lumber for the sides
• Asphalt shingles
• Chickenwire / fencing material

Other things that were not part of the coop build itself, but you'll need:

• Chickens (or eggs and an incubator, which we made)
• 5 gallon buckets and special water release devices for automatic watering
• Lots of regular grass clippings, weeds and vegetable table scraps for feed
• Bags of chicken feed
• Probably other stuff I'm forgetting

Looked around in the yard, and we selected a place that was close to a beautiful, serene view of a pond, surrounded by greens with a mix of sun and shade.

The build site we chose was under some pine trees, so it was already mostly cleared of any vegetation. This is an important step for obtaining a level surface, but if you leave any vegetation don't worry, the chickens will take care of it.

In this step, we dig a hole in the yard in a remote area, and filter the soil using a simple sieve we made, into two things: sand and pebbles/rocks (maybe the soil profile is different where you are but we have a high rock to sand ratio in New England due to all the glaciers of the past).

We wanted to put the pallets on top of some decorative bricks, but that turned out not to be so stable. So, we decided to go for concrete blocks instead.

We will use the sand under the blocks to create an adjustable surface for leveling.

We then take the concrete blocks, and lay them out 2 or 3 layers thick. We put some long pressure treated deck wood (rebar would have been better, but we didn't have any) inside the cement blocks, and filled in all the spaces with pebbles for stability. With only 2 layers of blocks, and a heavy structure on top, there's no real need to pour concrete, we found.

On top of these leveled cement blocks, we put two pallets, to serve as a base for the coop.

We need to make sure our chickens are safe, so we need to remove nails (using pliers / nail removers) from any surfaces where we might walk by (or chickens might encounter). Here we working on the future sides of the coop.

After mounting these nail-free specialty pallet sides that we found, we mounted and screwed them onto the base pallets. These pallets that we found for the sides were pretty strong -- thick boards, mounted onto 4x4's. The pieces were about 7 feet long, so they were just perfect for the project. It will be hard for you to find something exactly like this, but I do recommend that you use something very strong for all the sides, and make sure you have multiple 2x4's or some other strong thick wood, connecting them together. You might be able to get away with some extra long regular pallets, and just fill in the gaps in the pallets, or cover the sides in plywood or wide planks.

We then made trusses for the gable roof, by first making a mockup out of cardboard and measuring against the bottom-mounted sides. You can get a rough idea of our general plan from our whiteboarding session.

Trusses were cut from strong, approx 1.5-2 inch thick scrap planks on a table saw, and notches for the center beam and the sides were made using a jigsaw. As always, kids are not allowed to use the power tools that can cause harm (they are allowed to use drills with supervision) but can stand by and learn.

Then we put them in the coop against the mounted sides to check to make sure they fit, and confirm where the notches for the side should be.

We first mounted two trusses, and after screwing them into the sides, and carefully balanced the center beam into the notches in the center, and screwed them in lightly. After that we wedged in the remaining trusses and screwed everything tight with long wood screws.

We then pushed up a couple of pieces of plywood, and nailed them to the trusses (we later cut and filled in the holes created at the intersection of the sides, trusses and plywood with rectangular pieces of thin plywood to prevent any entry points for raccoons or foxes -- which you can see in my video at the top).

We first painted the roof with a weatherproofing stain, and then mounted a standard pattern of asphalt shingles using a high power stapler and roofing nails. This roof really lasted great over the winter, even with some heavy snow. BTW, I didn't calculate snow loads, but based on other structures in the neighborhood, I had a sense that this roof style would work and it did just fine over a few heavy snowstorms; that is another reason we need such a robust coop -- it gets cold where I'm at in New England! But the chickens can still stay warm and do just fine with the screen windows closed.

As we went along, to make things easier we painted the sides and all the outside-facing wood we mounted with stain and/or varnish.

Using some planks, with matching stain and varnish, as well as some screen material and pallet wood for window frames, we accented the coop with the same style of wood. I made the hinged door with some planks and a cross piece. The door is secured with an old barrel bolt lock. Note - I also made a cool rustic looking doorknob for the door, out of some pine log scraps.

At the end, I added a three-nest egg laying box, which opens and locks from the back, with a slightly angular design to allow them a narrower space to enter, and a larger place to settle. We fill the boxes, the main coop and the run with lots of grass clippings and weeds, for them to eat, make nests and play with. There's some nice action shots of this in the video above. And, I want to say here that the reason I haven't been adding dimensions to all of my steps is that it's really up to you. After I made this box, I realized it probably could only fit about three nests, based on the size of an average chicken, so that's where the divisions went. How big or small you make certain features of your coop are entirely up to you (and luck, depending on the sizes of pallets and pieces you end up with) and how many chickens you plan to have.

Fence poles were dug into the ground to give them around 20 feet of run, with two elevations. A sort of lower private area (just to cut down on the total amount of fencing needed, and a larger one that humans can easily enter. Two layers of fencing material were applied, including standard chicken wire and a thicker fencing material - both of which were repurposed from another project. The fencing was made solid by cutting some of the wire with pliers, and then wrapping it around other portions of fencing to make it solid and tight.

The fence was stapled and/or nailed up to the coop and some surrounding trees, and the base of the fence was lined with two layers of bricks, just to be sure that invaders would be discouraged from trying to enter.

Again, check out the video to see the foxes and raccoons that were thwarted with this fence. So far, after a year, even with lots of predators around, there have been no breaches.

Finally, a human door was built in the back, between a tree and the coop, by simply screwing some planks together around a portion of the fence and simply cutting out the door from the fence using pliers, and leaving some fencing to act as a "hinge." An old window lock was used to keep it locked up for the night. It is a little difficult to kick into place, but it's quite tight against the frame built for it. You can see it in this picture of the back of the coop. See the video to check out how tight it is against the frame, and how it locks.

Watering buckets with automated watering devices were placed throughout the coop to make sure everyone is thoroughly hydrated (they can go through many gallons in the summer). A cool juvenile security box was made to allow younger chickens a place to hide until they are large enough to play with the adults. And, a security curtain was made for the nesting box area, to provide a little privacy. Check out all these features on the video.

I also made a little food storage shed and bench for chicken watching (which you can find how I made that in another video on my channel).

It's important to supply the chickens with plenty of greens, so we give them plenty of garden weeds, and grow wheat and corn, just outside the coop too.

It's not rocket science to raise chickens, and it's plenty rewarding when you have a bunch of eggs to eat every day, and an occasional fresh chicken meal too. If you haven't done so already, I hope it's a hobby you can try out with some of your friends' or your own kids too! They really love the experience of raising chicks and taking care of them too. It's a real learning experience.

This coop and run seems to work pretty well for about 15 chickens, but I'm thinking about adding an extension with some solar power and tech automation add-ons too. Maybe that will be another instructable soon!

There are some more details and different images and video angles in the Youtube vid I posted above. Please be sure to check that out too!

Thanks for checking out my first instructable.