Last spring, after we’d been here nearly a year,  we bought our first chickens. We happened to have a building that is perfect for a chicken coop/feed storage area. We also had a bunch of old barn wood that was taken off one of the big shops out here since we needed to completely re do the shop. Of course I didn’t want to toss all that neat old wood!

The chicken coop was pretty fun to build. I’ll show you how we did it below. This year I plan on adding to it on the other side so it will be U shaped. I also plan to make better nesting boxes that are easier to get eggs out of. That’s one thing I didn’t plan very well when we built the first part, but we were kind of in a rush to get it done since we had just got our first chicks home.

I love the barn wood look and I am hoping to have enough to use for some other things on the property, and for some country decor.

As you can see, we already had a great structure to work with! I love that those benches are there as it made it super easy to just install plywood over top for the floor. We also used some left over vinyl flooring on top of the plywood for easy cleanup and protect the wood from getting wet.

Next we used some leftover pieces of particle board and other plywood type board to cover the inside walls as well as the top. Then we used some 2×4’s and 2×6’s for the corners and other supports to be able to attach the barn wood on the outside.

Doesn’t that old wood look beautiful? Another project on my list this year is to stain the whole thing. Not a dark stain, just something to make it pop a bit more and protect it from the weather.

And here is the door that I made myself! I was a little bit proud of myself. I had a picture in my head of how I wanted it to look, and thankfully we have a chop saw, so I was able to make the angle cuts. I love it! We didn’t have to go buy any of the wood. These were all pieces of wood that we had lying around. I did have to go buy the chicken wire, door hinges and latches.

Here’s the finished coop. Like I said, this year’s project is to do the same thing to the other side of the bench so the whole coop will be a U shape. I may even make a removable divider so I can separate chickens if need be. I will be sure to make good nesting boxes on the other side that I can actually open up from the end to grab eggs instead of having to reach around the corner through the main doors.

After getting the coop done, we made a very small run on the backside of this shed and cut a small door on the back wall for the chickens to go out. At the moment I am working on expanding their run. Forgive the pictures if they look off. The tree next to that building is pushing it so the building itself is leaning a bit to the left. The chicken run boards are level and straight up and down lol The ground also slopes down a bit so it looks like the run is not level!

A tip I learned when researching before building this, make sure to set the chicken wire or preferably a more sturdy wire, down into the ground a bit so that predators cannot dig underneath. I have some other fencing I need to put around the run in place of the chicken wire, I just haven’t got to it yet! Actually, I am planning on siding the left side of this run so it will only have the right side open. Once I expand the run off to the right, I can remove the chicken wire from that side too.

I would love to just free range our chickens, but both our dogs, that had been doing great around the chickens for months, decided to kill a couple last year, so I’ve been afraid to free range the chickens since. The dogs are fine if I’m out there with them, so I plan on doing some training. I’ll probably keep the dogs inside a couple hours before dark and let the chickens free range in the evening. The nice thing about chickens is they put themselves to bed!

I’ll be sure to post an update once we get the other part of the coop done!