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We have been living in Monda now since 2007 and ever since we moved in we have both wanted chickens but you know what it is like when you move house, cash is tight, problems arise that must be fixed, mortgage has to be paid, business has to continue and the list keeps getting larger! Chickens just had to wait so we could afford the cash to have the coop build along with their house and me being me I wanted a nice house, not some crappy expensive box you buy in the shop, so we had our friend, who is an expert carpenter, build the coop and the house.
The whole project has taken 2 weeks, however, this is not all day, every day, but they do take some planning. We have had a lot of rain during these weeks so we have also had many "rain days" which stops work outside.
Needless to say the result is perfect, just what we wanted and also great for me. I have Scoliosis, which is a curvature of the spine. I had surgery 21 years ago but I still have problems with my lumbar spine so bending down to get into a chicken coop was always going to present me with issues, this is the reason we needed a coop so large to accommodate the height I needed it to be so I didn´t have to bend down to enter the chicken's coop. The house itself was also bespokely designed by my friend, Mark Murray, who took into consideration my Scoliosis, which is why the back of the chicken house is easily accessible for me. There are 3 back panels which easily come out so I can reach inside to clean the house and collect eggs - ingenious!
We have no idea what to do with chickens but we are slowly learning, and as each day goes by we will learn more. We did little research into which chickens we should buy and what their requirements are, we are looking forward to learning from our mistakes (providing they are not bad ones!), the house is secure and safe, we know what we should not feed them and also what treats they like.
We believe our chickens to be Catalana Hens and a Booted Bantam, but we may be informed otherwise in the not too distant future by a Spanish neighbour! LOL
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I will now explain what we did, step by step to achieve our work of art for a chicken coop :)
Design Your Layout: Where is the house going to go, what materials it is going to be made from, how big do you require it, do you need to stand in it like me or would it be OK lower and how much this is going to cost, remember you have to allow for labour costs, either hour or day rates. We chose a piece of land next to our shed so we could butt the chicken coop up to one side of the shed. This was for 3 reasons, the main one being shelter for the chickens, less wood to buy as we could use the shed wall as part of the coop and the third reason was to use a piece of land that was never going to be garden and put it to some good use!Step 2
Preparation: Prepare the land where your chicken coop is going to be built, you will need to do some digging at this stage and lay out where the wood is going to go. We decided to include an Olive tree inside the coop, for no other reason than to make it look nice, so we had to do some contemplating on how that was going to work. We also wanted to provide a sheltered area for the winter months and of course shade for the hot months too. We had some old corrugated roof laying around the land so that was a good way to recycle that.Step 3
Framework: Dig holes for your framework posts to nestle in to and then build your framework and the door.Step 4
Chick House Construction: The house was a surprise, our carpenter made the house at home and then brought it round here in sections. I was told to stay in the shed while he put all the sections together to complete the house. I have been so excited about the chicken coop for a long time that I burst into tears when I saw it, the house is exactly as we wanted it and how I had imagined it was going to look.Step 5
Wood Staining: Ensure you have at least 3 pots of stain, we used pine but you can choose whatever you like. We did not stain the inside of the chicken house for fear of them not liking the smell and then not laying eggs! We used 2 pots of stain on the chicken house. I say 3 because we are also planning on staining the framework itself, especially the door ends (as per instruction from our carpenter).Step 6
Chicken Wire: Now the framework is built and the roof is on the section that you wish to keep dry, get the chicken wire on the go and start making it rat and fox proof! Wrap the chicken wire around your wooden posts carefully, we used U nails for fixing the chicken wire to our posts - fiddly little buggers that they are!Step 7
What You Will Need
Wood
Chicken Wire
Wood Stain
Corrugated Iron
Bitchumen
U Nails
Nails
ScrewsStraw
Feeders for water and food
Latches and hinges
Wood
10 of 240x4.5x4.5
2 of Plywood
20 of 2.50x4.5
Total: €196.00
Wood Stain
3 Tins of Stain (Pine)
Total: €40.80
Chicken Wire
2 metres of chicken wire
Total: €37.50
Latches, Hinges, Screws €20 depending on what you choose of course
Chickens and Feeders
1 Booted Bantam
3 Catalana Hens
1 Feeder
1 Water Feeder
Chicken Food 40KG
Bail of shavings
Total: €83.50
Chickens also require perches for sleeping at night inside their houses so we used bits of wood that we have kicking around the land. We made one for their house and one for their coop as some fun for them. We are also planning on hanging CDs off this perch along with some balls for entertainment but we will share that when we have done it!
I have placed some images below of the chickens and other images I wanted to share
