Susan’s Tennessee Garden Coop with an A-frame Henhouse Inside!

Susan at Gum Tree Farm in Tennessee already had a small mobile chicken coop, but was looking for a larger, more secure space to complete her chicken habitat. So she cleverly used The Garden Coop walk-in chicken coop plans to build a custom enclosure into which she installed her existing A-frame chicken coop for use as a henhouse.

It only took a few modifications. She added a floor to the previously open-floored A-frame coop and set it in place where the rectangular henhouse of The Garden Coop would normally go. Then she created an egg door in the back and installed a henhouse ladder up through the floor.

Chickens at home in the garden

Susan wrote us recently about how she incorporates her chickens into her backyard garden:

I buy this sturdy but flexible fencing and surround the crops that I’m growing for any particular season. It is very easy to put up with thin bamboo stakes and to take down, roll up and store.

Within the garden I am constantly planting areas with greens for us and then eventually turning it over to the chicks. They then do the weeding and cultivating the used spot.  You can also see the egg door we added to the coop, which works great.

One last thing. . . we have cultivated a family of seven crows here at Gum Tree, and they do a great job of patrolling the hawks. I reward them with corn after I hear them chasing one away!

Thanks to Susan for sharing her story and chicken coop photos with us! You can read more about Susan’s coop-building process here and browse more pictures showing how she’s integrating chickens into her lovely garden. 

Have you incorporated existing chicken coops or other structures into your Garden Coop? If so, let us know about it in the comments below.