Ideally, the coop should be built before you even get chickens so that you're ready to move them whenever they're big enough. We, however, got the chicks on a whim and didn't built the coop beforehand. The weather was also really cold (had several snow days from school) and neither myself nor my fiance wanted to get outside and start building.
I would like to state that (almost) all the credit goes to the fiance for building the coop. I'll take my credit where it is due but he did build/design this with his own brain, lots of math and his man hands.
To begin we got the following items:
4 - 2x4 @10 ft
1 - 4x4 @8 ft
1 - 4x4 plywood @ 1/2 inch
4 - 12-in x 12-in patio stones
1 - quart size can of white stain
3" wood screws
Total cost so far: $80-ish
Ideally (again) I'd like to stay under $200 for the entire coop but I also want it to be something that lasts so I'm willing to spend what is needed. Realistically, coops can cost anywhere from around $100-2000 depending on how fancy-schmancy you make yours. I've learned that its much cheaper to build yourself than to purchase a pre-made coop.
The first thing to do was cut down the wood. In order to get most of the wood into my mid-sized SUV we had Home Depot cut them down for us.
We cut the 4x4 into 2ft lengths. These will be the supporting beams that the entire coop will rest on.
The 2x4 was cut down into one 4.5 ft piece and the remaining 5.5 foot. When we got home, these were cut down to 4@4ft and 4@3.8 feet.
Why the different sizes? Math, that's why.
In order to make sure the coop was evenly laid, the fiance staked out the spot we were putting the coop on and dug up the dirt to make sure the paving stones would be even.
My yard slopes, so in order for the fiance to make the stones even, he placed three small pieces of wood on top of the paving stones, laid down one of the 2x4 on top and set the level in the center. He then adjusted the height of the small pieces of wood which told him how far down he needed to dig own in order to make everything even (math is definitely not my forte).
These are pictures of the first brace resting on the paving stones.
For the bottom brace, two of the 4ft long 2x4 were screwed into the 4x4 as seen above. We made two of these and set them on opposite sides of the paving stones.
To connect them, we took the 2x4 pieces that were 3.8 feet long and set them inside (my brilliant idea) the 4x4 corner braces.
So the reason for the shorter length of the inside braces was in order to accommodate our 4ft x 4ft piece of plywood. We still ended up with a 1" overhang after installing the piece of plywood but we've been able to work with that pretty well.
We went back and forth several times as to how we could make the piece of plywood fit without having to buy a really large piece and cut it down. Our solution was to place the second set of braces, at 4" shorter, on the inside. This also ends up giving our brace extra stability which is definitely what we want.
Perfectly level!
He doesn't know what just happened but it worked!
Once we had the piece of plywood installed, we painted two coats of white stain onto the structure. Because this portion is going to be exposed to the elements (and because it rained for two days as soon as we finished this) we wanted to give it as much of a lasting head start as possible.
See the next installment of the chicken coop here!
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