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.
