Ideas are tested and problems solved in this fifth installment of the Krewe of Coops, featuring nine coop examples from customers who’ve personalized The Garden Coop walk-in chicken coop design with clever modifications or accessories. Enjoy the ride! (more…)
Posts tagged with ‘Portland’
Make It Your Own: “Krewe of Coops” Virtual Chicken Coop Tour, No. 5 — Nine Garden Coops with Clever Modifications and Accessories
Tuesday, August 30th, 2016Make It Your Own: “Krewe of Coops” Virtual Chicken Coop Tour, No. 2
Wednesday, January 28th, 2015It’s time again for the Krewe of Coops, a celebration of what people have been building with our chicken coop plans. This time, we’re featuring The Garden Coop design exclusively, with nine fantastic examples from across the U.S. and one from Australia. So gather your feathered friends, find a comfy perch, and enjoy the parade!
How to move The Garden Coop chicken coop
Thursday, November 6th, 2014
Why did the chicken coop cross the road?
I’d love to hear your punchline in the comments, but first let’s address the fact that sometimes a chicken coop does indeed have to cross a road — sometimes even several roads.
Maybe you’re moving and you want to take it with you. Maybe you sold it to someone in town. Either way, it’s gotta roll. And while that’s easy with a smaller coop, if you built a walk-in coop like The Garden Coop, relocating it takes planning and effort.
In this post, I cover a few things that may help:
- Tips for building The Garden Coop so it’s easier to move later
- How to move The Garden Coop once it’s built and in place
- Alternatives to moving your chicken coop
Stay to the end for a special treat: Chevy’s Big Garden Coop Move — pictures and video of a real-life, cross-town chicken coop move. Portlandia’s got nothing on this action. (more…)
Make It Your Own: Heidi’s Oregon Garden Ark for Bunnies
Thursday, July 24th, 2014
Heidi in Portland, Oregon, used our plans for The Garden Ark chicken coop to build a rabbit hutch for her two pet rabbits. While the ark works well for this in both size and functionality, there are some things you’d need to modify to make it work for bunnies. To get the discussion going, here are some tips Heidi sent in for others thinking of doing the same. (more…)
Make It Your Own: Ian’s Garden Ark Chicken Coop with Solar-Powered Door Opener (VIDEO)
Wednesday, April 30th, 2014
Let the chickens out. Let the chickens back in. Let ’em out. Let ’em in. . . .
Ian wasn’t having it anymore. While he wanted to give his chickens daily access to a larger space outside their coop, he couldn’t stay tied to their schedule. Not every day, anyway.
So being the tech savvy guy he is, Ian dug into his box of spare computer parts, added some components he found online, and fashioned a solution that has simplified his life. (more…)
Chicken coop workshop this Saturday (Oct. 5)
Thursday, October 3rd, 2013
I’ll be leading a Chicken Coop Building Basics workshop this Saturday, October 5th from 10-noon at Growing Gardens in NE Portland.
If you or anyone you know (in or near Portland, of course) is thinking of keeping chickens and wants to get past the intimidating part of building a coop — or if you already have some ideas for an amazing DIY coop and just want a place to bounce them around — this is it.
We’ll talk about what chickens need in a coop, different coop styles, options for building materials, and tips on how to incorporate your coop and flock into your home garden. I’ll do some small demonstrations, but you don’t have to worry about getting your hands dirty. Just come learn!
A separate workshop, Intro to Urban Chicken Keeping, will follow at 12:30p.
Growing up with chickens: 5 things city kids learn by keeping a backyard flock
Wednesday, February 15th, 2012If you frequent Coop Thoughts, chances are you caught this recent coop-building story by Morgan Emrich. I love his take on things, so I invited him to author a post about his experience keeping chickens. Here it is. . .
Kids, Meet Chickens
I would love to raise my kids on a farm. For a lot of reasons, that’s not going to happen. Like the majority of Americans I’m tethered to the city. But that doesn’t mean my children (9, 7, and 5 years old) can’t learn some of the lessons that farm kids take for granted.
Enter chickens.
Turns out a small flock of hens in the backyard can go a long way towards exposing children to things most city dwellers only get to read about in books. The concepts of natural cycles, environmental stewardship, biology, and our place in nature are no longer abstractions for my kids. Thanks to a small coop and a few chickens, these types of things have become concrete realities.
In particular, their feathered teachers have taught them five key lessons: (more…)
Make It Your Own: Reva’s Garden Coop “Mini,” Portland, Oregon
Tuesday, October 4th, 2011
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.
Make It Your Own: Morgan’s Garden Ark, Portland, Oregon
Tuesday, September 20th, 2011
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 2x2s may not have been used, mistakes may have been made.
All in all, very happy. Getting three eggs a day. –Morgan
Make It Your Own: Bree’s Garden Ark, Portland, Oregon
Tuesday, August 16th, 2011
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.
** UPDATE: I’ve since created this tutorial for building raised beds that are sized to fit The Garden Ark perfectly. Take a look! **
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.
Chicken Keeping Basics article in Neighborhood Notes
Monday, February 7th, 2011I just spotted this article with good tips for new chicken keepers. It features advice from Robert and Hannah Litt of Portland’s Urban Farm Store, authors of the upcoming book A Chicken In Every Yard.
Also in the article is a photo of a beautifully built Garden Coop, right in the front yard of someone’s Portland home (not mine!). Of course, I think it fits in perfectly. Take a look.
Pictures from the Growing Gardens chicken coop building workshop
Tuesday, October 19th, 2010
In September, my son and I led a chicken coop building workshop put on by Growing Gardens of Portland. Twelve or so people came out to Naomi’s Organic Farm Supply to take part, I’m sure setting some kind of record for the most hands working on a chicken coop at once. We had a great day in the sun and put together an awesome coop. Read on for more details and pictures.
Make It Your Own: Lubosh Cech’s Hen Temple
Monday, August 30th, 2010
When Portland designer, filmmaker, and photographer Lubosh Cech was ready to build his own chicken coop, he wanted it to be a work of art. The Garden Coop chicken coop plans turned out to be the perfect place to start. Lubosh told us recently about the modifications he made to the design and how he gave his backyard coop an artful, personal touch:
Thank you for the plans! This was a fun project, and it successfully distracted me from my work for most of the month.
Because of the space limitations, I had to shorten the design and push the structure all the way to the corner of the yard. In addition to buying new lumber, I reused wood and other materials that cluttered my basement shop. Half of the paint I used is 100% recycled latex from Metro.
To make the structure more fun, I painted the Buddha on the front panel of the henhouse and decorated the roof with the Tibetan prayer flags. The Buddha is holding a golden egg over the nesting box access door.
Coincidentally, my three chicks moved in on July 6th, the Dalai Lama’s 75th birthday!
Here are a few more pictures of the Hen Temple. (more…)
5 Innovative Portland Chicken Coops – Neighborhood Notes Article
Tuesday, April 13th, 2010
Chicken coop design is the focus of today’s feature story over at Neighborhood Notes, a cool website focusing on hyper-local news in Portland. The Garden Coop is featured along with four other local designs. There’s a nice slideshow at the end with more pictures and ideas.
There’s a lot happening in Portland, for sure, and it’s nice to be included in such good company.
Make It Your Own: Mike and Dara’s Garden Coop
Thursday, November 26th, 2009
I got a nice message the other day from Mike and Dara P. of Portland who built their backyard chicken coop using The Garden Coop plans.
Their coop works beautifully in their city backyard and fits well into their neighborhood. It also makes a great backdrop for their family holiday card!
In the note they sent, they shared tips from their experience building The Garden Coop as well as some of the ways that they customized the design to work for their situation. Here are some excerpts:
