Colin and Faye sent in this inspiring story along with pictures of their beautiful, rustic Garden Coop build and tips for other chicken coop builders in Australia. The rest of this post comes from them. . . .
Our Garden Coop build
We have finished our chicken coop and our six eight-week-old chickens took up residence last Saturday. Thank you for such easy-to-understand plans. For my husband Colin and I, this was our first venture in building anything, and we are very pleased with the outcome.
Giving the chicken coop a rustic Australian look
We used corrugated iron on the left and back walls of the hen house. We had it left over from making some garden beds, and along with the second-hand fence palings on the other two walls, it makes our coop very rustic and Australian looking.
We put the ladder on the side wall and added a door so that our chickens are safely locked away from the many foxes around here at night.
Some tips for fellow Australian coop builders
- With the timber, the 90 x 38 mm boards converted to 90 x 35 mm available here. That may be helpful for others here in Australia to keep in mind. Other measurements in the plans were just right.
- We were able to get the SunTuf polycarbonate roofing here as well.
- At first I could not work out what “hardware cloth” was, but then realized it was wire mesh. The size of the wire mesh is the same here in Australia.
- It was not hard to work out equivalents or substitutes, so thank you for the metric conversion.
A great DIY project, at any age
This has been a terrific project for us, we are in our early sixties. I have learnt so many new skills, and I am so proud of my husband who has Parkinson’s disease, with what he was able to accomplish.
Now we have the pleasure of watching our chickens, which is so relaxing, and look forward to when they start to lay!
—Faye and Colin, Mirboo North, Australia
Thanks to Faye and Colin for sharing their story, tips, and coop pictures! Like what they’ve done? Leave a quick comment to let us know. And feel free to subscribe to Coop Thoughts to get first notice of the latest posts by email. It’s free, ad-free, and you can unsubscribe at any time.
Read other articles tagged with: Australia, Hardware Cloth, Materials, Metric, Predators, The Garden Coop.
Or in these categories: Coop Aesthetics, Make It Your Own. Posted on February 4th, 2012 | 2 Comments »
They say you can’t judge a book by its cover, and while I’m admittedly biased in this case — that’s a real-life Garden Coop chicken coop in the background of the cover shot! — garden designer Jessi Bloom’s new book Free-Range Chicken Gardens is as lush and inspiring as the chicken paradise featured on the front.
Enter to win a free copy, plus other chicken stuff. See details below.
The premise of the book is simple: how do you best integrate chickens into a backyard vegetable or permaculture garden. Bloom does a wonderful job of showing you how, drawing not only from her own experience as a garden designer and chicken keeper, but also from the experiences of a diverse group of chicken gardeners she profiles throughout the book.
Topics covered include all the basics of keeping backyard chickens plus how to create a plan for a chicken-friendly garden and what plants to include/avoid in your chickens’ day yard. The illustrations are clear. Kate Baldwin’s photos are gorgeous.
Seriously, if I were a chicken, I’d want to live in this book — or at least in one of the gardens featured in this book — one of which is the handiwork of horticulturalist Alana Meyer. Alana’s sumptuous Washington State garden adorns the book’s cover along with the chicken coop she built using The Garden Coop plans and her own two hands.
CONTEST: Enter to Win a Chicken Garden Kit
Through February 17, 2012, the book’s publisher (Timber Press) is running a contest to promote Free-Range Chicken Gardens. One entrant will win a free copy of the book, chicken feed and supplies — even free plans to build your own Garden Coop or Garden Ark chicken coop. An email address is all it takes to enter. Here’s the contest page. Good luck!
Have you read Jessi’s book? Follow her blog? Leave a quick comment and let us know what you think, what you’ve learned, and what you’ve been inspired to do with your garden and chickens.
Read other articles tagged with: Chicken Feed, Sustainability, The Garden Coop, Vegetables.
Or in these categories: Books, Food and Nutrition, Gardening. Posted on January 18th, 2012 | No Comments »
Karen sent in these pictures of her Garden Coop and Garden Ark chicken coops in Connecticut. (You may recall this post from a while back that featured a photo of her dog guarding her backyard coop.)
There are a number of reasons you’d want to build both coops: expanding your flock, giving your hens added mobility to graze safely, optional space to house broody hens or deal with personality conflicts (it happens!).
Besides, don’t they just look great together?
Here’s what Karen had to say about her coops:
I have a lot of friends who come over to see our chickens and just love The Garden Coop design. We are planning on adding on the exterior egg boxes this spring. We also built The Garden Ark for our two silkie hens who were having trouble getting along with the chickens in the big coop. I added a little door on the right side so they could have quick access to the yard. They are very happy and the coop is perfect for them. Thanks!
Thanks to Karen for sharing pictures of her chicken coops. Like what she’s built? Leave a comment below. And check out her portrait photography.
Read other articles tagged with: Connecticut, Seasons, The Garden Ark, The Garden Coop, Winter.
Or in these categories: Make It Your Own. Posted on January 10th, 2012 | 3 Comments »
In addition to fully assembled chicken waterers, we’re now also offering the push-in poultry nipples you need to make your own.
These are the same push-in style nipples we use to make our waterers, sold separately in packs of five. They are made of quality stainless steel parts inside a durable, hard, red plastic casing, and they’re sealed with a long-lasting silicone grommet. Made in China.
Use a 3/8″ drill bit to make a hole in your tubing or container. Insert the grommet first, then the nipple. Moistening it may help it go in easier. If you are going to seal your container, be sure to create a separate hole near the top (above the water line) so that air can enter as the water goes out.
These are the same push-in style nipples we use to make our waterers, sold separately in packs of five. They are made of quality stainless steel parts inside a durable, hard, red plastic casing, and they’re sealed with a long-lasting silicone grommet. Take a look.
Read other articles tagged with: Feeder & Waterer.
Or in these categories: Feed and Grazing, Health and Safety, Products & Supplies. Posted on January 4th, 2012 | 1 Comment »
Cindy in Rhode Island sent us this picture of her Garden Coop build, all decked out for the holidays. The rest of this post comes directly from her: Read more and discuss »
Read other articles tagged with: Hardware Cloth, Henhouse, Location, Predators, Seasons, The Garden Coop.
Or in these categories: Make It Your Own. Posted on December 26th, 2011 | 4 Comments »
For the past few winters, I’ve wrapped our Garden Coop in plastic sheeting to keep driving rain and snow (mostly rain here in the Pacific Northwest) out of the run area.
I’d love to say I do this for artistic reasons, à la Christo, but it’s really all about practicality. Plastic film is inexpensive, easy to put up, and keeps your hens dry and happy. And in the spring, you can just take it down, roll it up, and store it out of the way.
There are other solutions, of course — sheet siding, acrylic panels, canvas, landscape fabric. Let me know in the comments what has worked for you. Read more and discuss »
Read other articles tagged with: Chicken run, Materials, Plastic Sheeting, Seasons, The Garden Ark, Winter.
Or in these categories: Coop Aesthetics, Coop Construction, Health and Safety. Posted on November 25th, 2011 | 2 Comments »
For visitors to TheGardenCoop.com, I’ve arranged a discount from Portland’s own Timber Pro UV on their non-toxic wood treatments and stains.
In particular, their Internal Wood Stabilizer product is ideally suited for chicken coops like The Garden Coop and The Garden Ark, safely protecting exposed exterior softwoods from rot and moisture damage in a way that stain or paint alone cannot.
Learn more and get the Timber Pro UV discount code here.
Read other articles tagged with: Discount Code, Paint, TimberPro UV, Wood.
Or in these categories: Coop Construction, Health and Safety. Posted on November 22nd, 2011 | No Comments »
Randy and Christy used The Garden Ark mobile chicken coop plans to build a beautiful white and baby blue chicken tractor for their northern California flock. They also added an ingenious gravity-fed feeding system (made of PVC pipe) and a bucket watering system that mounts to the rear of the coop.
Take a look here, then visit their site for a detailed description of their mobile coop and instructions on how to make your own automatic PVC pipe feeder and bucket waterer for your chickens.
Thanks to Randy and Christy for sharing their ideas and pictures! If you have experience with a PVC chicken feeder or bucket waterer on your chicken coop, leave a comment below. What has worked? What would you do differently?
Read other articles tagged with: California, Feeder & Waterer, The Garden Ark.
Or in these categories: Feed and Grazing, Make It Your Own. Posted on October 26th, 2011 | 3 Comments »
Richard and Ellen shared several pictures of their Garden Coop build along with notes about how they customized it for their California backyard. The rest of the post comes from them. . . Read more and discuss »
Read other articles tagged with: California, Cleaning, Henhouse, Nest Boxes, The Garden Coop, Wood.
Or in these categories: Make It Your Own. Posted on October 18th, 2011 | No Comments »
Reva hired a local handyman to build a modified Garden Coop to house her backyard chickens. She sited the coop beneath a large yard tree and reduced its size so that it would fit the space perfectly. Inside the henhouse, she framed in a raised lip around the hens’ entry hole in the floor to keep the litter in place.
Thanks to Reva for the pictures and ideas. Check out our coop plans to build your own stylish chicken coop or tractor. Or click to see more examples of what others are building.
Read other articles tagged with: Henhouse, Portland, The Garden Coop.
Or in these categories: Make It Your Own. Posted on October 4th, 2011 | 3 Comments »
Several months ago on the advice of a customer, I decided to make a DIY nipple waterer for our backyard chickens. Our birds were just chicks at the time, and keeping them supplied with fresh, clean water with their jar-and-saucer waterer was a frequent chore.
So I fashioned a simple waterer from a used plastic jug and a poultry nipple I bought online. The chicks took right to it, and the difference was remarkable.
No more spilled water. No more poopy water. No more worrying that their water had run dry.
When the flock graduated to the coop, their makeshift waterer went with them, and I started working on a more permanent solution for their larger space.
Here’s the nipple waterer I came up with — which I now also make to sell — and some videos showing you what you get and how it works. Read more and discuss »
Read other articles tagged with: Cleaning, Feeder & Waterer, The Garden Ark, The Garden Coop, Visibility.
Or in these categories: Feed and Grazing, Health and Safety, Products & Supplies. Posted on September 27th, 2011 | 5 Comments »
I got this note from a friend the other day:
John, just wanted to say thanks for The Garden Ark plans. I finally have it done and four hens happily residing. The plans were great. I made a few modifications though:
- I used poultry fencing instead of hardware cloth, for no good reason other than I’m a cheap bastard and I like little tiny cuts on my hands.
- Instead of clean, straight cuts made with a good saw, I decided to go with a more organic-wavy-line cutting style made with a jigsaw. I think I’m in a Frank Gehry phase.
- Instead of “reading all the text,” I often proceeded based on the photos and blind, baseless confidence in my abilities to intuit what you intended. Doors may be in the wrong place, extra 2×2s may not have been used, mistakes may have been made.
All in all, very happy. Getting three eggs a day. –Morgan
Read other articles tagged with: Hardware Cloth, Portland, The Garden Ark.
Or in these categories: Make It Your Own. Posted on September 20th, 2011 | 3 Comments »
Michele sent a few pictures of her backyard chicken coop in Massachusetts, a really nice example of what you can build straight from The Garden Coop plans. Here’s what she wrote. . . Read more and discuss »
Read other articles tagged with: Hardware Cloth, Massachusetts, The Garden Coop.
Or in these categories: Make It Your Own. Posted on September 12th, 2011 | 1 Comment »
Bree built her Garden Ark mobile chicken tractor to fit perfectly atop the raised beds in her Portland, Oregon vegetable garden. And she trimmed the skid ends to work as handles. Here are some notes she shared about the project. . .
I have eight garden beds the same dimensions, and my plan is to move the ark along twice a year or thereabouts, fertilizing and composting in place. I tinkered with the dimensions slightly to have it match the footprint of the beds. And I reversed the egg door and double door sides so that the full panels would be on the south and west sides for better weather proofing and optimal chicken viewing.
The plans were great! Thanks so much for such detailed instructions. By the way, I found it much easier to work with the hardware cloth on the roll. I left it on the roll as I laid it out and stapled it, and then cut it after I’d secured enough to know it wasn’t going to start curling up on me. This was especially helpful for the longest stretch of cloth covering the front and top.
Finally, I’m proud to say that as a newly single mum, I did it all myself. Every bit. I had help moving it, and that was it. It really is possible for one woman who is reasonably handy to do this herself.
Thanks to Bree for sharing her ideas for building and personalizing The Garden Ark. If you’ve found this post helpful, let her know in the comments below.
Read other articles tagged with: Mobility, Portland, The Garden Ark, Vegetables.
Or in these categories: Gardening, Make It Your Own. Posted on August 16th, 2011 | 3 Comments »
Shane reversed the slope of his Garden Coop roof (angling it down towards the front rather than the rear) so that he could position the coop against an existing shed in his Iowa garden.
I used your plans to help me build my Garden Coop, which I literally put in the garden so that I could easily feed the birds garden scraps. The roof is made of recycled metal and put on backward for rain/snow purposes. I also attached the coop directly to the shed to give the hens a cool foundation to press against on warm days. The window was added for my kid’s entertainment.
I am a Lutheran pastor, and the coop has been a hit with my rural Iowa congregation. Many members offered “parts” to the effort, and many Sundays I find children around the coop admiring our birds, especially our two white-capped black Polish chicks.
Your instructions were easy to use and I actually did the entire project with a skilsaw and cordless drill. I was amazed how simple it really was to complete. Thanks for giving our birdkeeping a great start. Now, just to wait for the eggs!
Thanks to Shane for sending in his picture and comments. If you’ve found his tips useful, please leave a comment and let him know.
Read other articles tagged with: Iowa, Roofing, The Garden Coop.
Or in these categories: Make It Your Own. Posted on August 6th, 2011 | 2 Comments »
