When we named our stand-alone chicken coop design “The Basic Coop,” we meant it purely as a compliment. The design is basic, of course, in that it’s easy to build and easy to afford.
But that simplicity makes it a great starting point to extend, customize, and create the perfect housing for your small backyard flock. In this sense, The Basic Coop design is anything but basic. These fifteen customer builds will show you what I mean. . . .
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Caity and family built and customized a beautiful Garden Coop a few years ago for their backyard flock in North Carolina, full of added features and decorative touches. Now they’ve completed yet another amazing coop — a Garden Loft that outshines even their earlier masterpiece. The rest of this post comes directly from Caity. . . .
Matt in Raleigh used The Garden Coop walk-in chicken coop plans and hardware quick kit to create a beautifully customized copper-top coop. It looks stunning new, and the copper will only gain character as it ages. The photos and notes that follow come directly from him. . . (more…)
In this third ride of the Krewe of Coops, we feature The Garden Ark mobile chicken coop design, with several examples from around the U.S. Enjoy the parade!
Michelle built this adorable North Carolina chicken coop using The Basic Coop plans and hardware kit. Her four chicks moved in in the fall, and she wrote recently to say that they made it through the cold, snowy winter with no issues — and no added light or heat (or lava lamps). (more…)
Kristopher and his family in Spokane, Washington, built a beautiful chicken coop using our plans as a guide. I love the attention to detail, for instance, in their choice of hinges, ladder construction, dark blue trim, and neatly attached hardware cloth. They also added a nifty PVC feeder they can fill from outside the coop. (more…)
Bill and Chris in Southeastern Massachusetts built a beautiful chicken coop using The Garden Coop plans. They sent us some nice pictures and a detailed description of all they did to make it their own. The rest of the post comes directly from Chris. . . . (more…)
In the urban or suburban garden, limited space, pests, wary neighbors, and the like can make the idea of keeping chickens seem like more hassle than it’s worth. But by designing and building the right kind of coop, you can quickly get past these hurdles and add a whole new dimension to your garden.
Here are seven tips to put your coop project on the right path. . . .
A well-ventilated chicken coop helps keep your hens from suffering and your neighbors from complaining. Of course, you do need to stay ahead of any odors, making sure you balance out their poop with plenty of high-carbon bedding like straw, wood shavings, leaves, or shredded paper. We use the deep-litter method and continue to add straw as the chickens add droppings. This mixture begins to compost in place, and the volume builds only slowly. From time to time we move it all to a compost bin to finish doing its thing, then incorporate the rich fertilizer into the garden.
NOTE: The pictures in this post feature coops built by us and by customers of our chicken coop plans. Click on them to learn more about each DIY chicken coop build.
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Deb and Donovan from near Seattle sent in several views of their backyard chicken coop build. Look at that flower box and window! They were kind enough to share some thoughts on their experience finding and building the right coop for their needs. The rest of this post comes from them. . . (more…)
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.
Brad’s Garden Coop build shows off a real attention to detail, especially on the siding around the hen house. It’s got a great color scheme — the green tone contrasting nicely with the natural cedar. Most importantly, it looks like Brad and his family had a lot of fun with the project. The rest of this post and photos come from him. . . (more…)
Merri-Lynn sent in this picture of her Garden Coop build in Tennessee. She worked on it with her daughter, who, as a big Hannah Montana fan, insisted on a bright color scheme. Merri-Lynn wrote:
We couldn’t be more proud of the way it turned out. It took a number of weekends to complete as we had to wait for additional hands for a few of the steps, but for the most part we completed it ourselves. The directions were easy to follow, and I would recommend that anyone can take on this project. Our chickens love their new home — color and all!
Thanks to Merri-Lynn for her picture and comments. If you like what you see, let her know with a reply below. And tell us, what colors are your chicken coop?
Whether you’re building The Garden Coop, The Garden Loft, The Garden Ark, The Basic Coop, or pretty much any other chicken coop, the instructions that follow will show you in detail how to add external nesting boxes to your coop.
First, a little background. I designed our chicken coops to make efficient use of space, be easy to build, and to have everything under one roof — including the nesting boxes. Personally, I prefer the simplicity of having the boxes in the henhouse, and it has worked well for us and many others for years.
So if you’re new to chicken keeping or coop building, please do not feel as though you have to add exterior nest boxes to your coop.
That said, there’s something about external nesting boxes that just captures the fancy of backyard chicken keepers. . . . (more…)
“I have never had so much fun totally ignoring my children.” So begins Cheris’s blog post about building her own chicken coop with The Garden Ark mobile chicken coop plans. Of course, once your coop is built, it’s often the kids that will enjoy it most. . .
Lila K. and her husband live on the Gulf Coastal Plain of Texas. This is their chicken coop, built using The Garden Coop chicken coop design plans. It’s remarkable, not only for what you can see, but also for what you can’t. At least, not unless you’re looking for it.
The Garden Coop chicken coop design plan calls for a pier-on-grade foundation that works well just about anywhere. But if you need to adapt the design to suit local building codes or seasonal weather events, it’s quite flexible. Lila chose to modify the design by setting 4×4 posts at each corner of the coop and securing the frame to those.
Her primary reason for adapting the design was to give even more stability to their chicken coop, anchoring it firmly should it be buffeted by treacherous Gulf Coast weather. Aesthetically, Lila also liked the beefier look the posts gave to the frame.
She paid great attention to other details as well. She added a small window on the front, and she painted the trim, door stops, and roof structure a light green color that stands out against the natural wood tone of the frame. By doing this, she created really nice outlines that give her chicken coop a smart, finished look.
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