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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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! Read More
It’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!
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:
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. And I’ve updated the post with photos from another Garden Coop move in Nevada. Read More
Heidi in Portland, Oregon, used our plans for The Garden Ark mobile 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. Read More
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. Read More
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.
If 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. . .
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: Read More