Today, I would like to showcase my recycled DIY build with you all.
I had been toying with the idea of getting some chickens for my allotment for some time now, and an opportunity came when I saw that someone close wanted to rehome his chickens.
His advert read, Chickens £2.50 each, cheaper than ASDA they will lay eggs or eat them upto you.
After a little thinking, I decided to take the half-hour drive and collect the chickens, but I had a problem, I had nowhere to keep them.
My original plan was to acquire 6 chickens, but when I got there I found that there were 8, so I took them all.
I got them home and housed them in the rabbit run and cages, and even though this wasn't ideal the chickens made themselves at home.
I got them on Sunday, by Wednesday I had my first egg, and since then I have been getting 1 a day.
On Monday I decided that it was time to build my chicken coop and run, but I had another problem, I am broke, so everything I used was from a recycled sauce.
I started off with a pallet as the base for the coop, this one is 7 feet long and 4 feet wide, so I knew it would be perfect for the chickens to settle in.
I then used an old shed back as the back of the shed, this was on my allotment and needed some work on it to make it sturdy again, I also attached the base and the back to my shed to make it stronger.
I used 2 lengths of 2x2s that were 6 feet long, these I had to buy, they cost £3 each and came from a timber recycler, the roof is some old tin that was on the allotment when I took it on.
As you can see from the picture above, it was taking shape but looked like a mess.
I lined the floor with another tin sheet that was on the allotment and started to build up the sides, the inside of the coop is lined with an alloy which will make cleaning easier.
I have 8 chickens, I know it seems strange but I only built 3 chicken boxes in the coop, I have a friend who has 15 chickens and they all lay in one box and he has a box for each of his, knowing this, if they need more I will build them more, but I am just taking things slowly at the moment.
The hinges I bought from Wilcos they didn't cost a lot, and I built the coop door out of pallet wood, I also got given by another allotment holder some metal fencing which I think was perfect for keeping chickens in as a run.
Because of the current bird flu going around, chickens are on lockdown in the UK, which means that they have to be in a building or a place where no other birds can get to them, know this I had to buy some scaffolding netting, and I used it to cover the run so no other birds can get in.
I introduced my little ladies to their new homes earlier today and they seem to like the extra space, they are all covered over, and I have bungee cords that hold the door closed and zip ties that hold all the netting down.
I cut a hole in the door and added a mesh window as well as a coop door for them to take cover if they need to during the day. I am impressed with how it turned out.
Altogether I spent a massive £38 building this run and coop, it shows what a little bit of work and a lot of asking can get you. if I hadn't of bought the netting it would have cost £13 to build.
what do you all think?
Omg this is awesome! You made a really tight coop there, and sooo cheap, way to effing go! Also don't worry about the nesting boxes, they will all use one, I have 39 chickens and they all lay in the corner of the coop in one nest, completely ignoring their 9 nesting boxes, this and many other reasons is why I affectionately call them the #chickenbitchez :D
39 chickens sound a hand full, How much are you feeding and what feed are you using?#chickenbitches sounds about right, I thought mine were going to be freeloaders and take and not give anything back. I am really happy with how it has turned out.
They eat about 60 kg of feed per week, a lay ration pellet 17% protein.
Oh wow, that is a lot of food, I've had two 25kg bags, one is pellets and the other is crushed corn, and I'm not even down half a bag yet.
How many eggs on average do you get from yours? I was getting one a day for 5 days, yesterday I got 3 and today I got two. I'm really happy with the progress their making.
Welllll...I have 20 older hens (2.5 years) that need to be culled so this is affecting my numbers. The rest of my hens are all laying age. I'm getting 18 - 30 eggs per day. By selling them it pays for the feed and I end up with all the eggs I could ever want. I sell baking too and it's sweet to have never had to buy an egg from the store for the last 7 years.
I'm envious of your coop, honestly. We've spent a lot of money on coop builds over the years, keep up the great work!
I think my hens are older than yours, the guy said around 3 years old, but could be older. they belonged to an older guy who gave up his allotment so the lad I got them from took the birds in first and had them a while. so I don't know what to think.
There is a place further down south from me that sell rescue chickens from the battery before cull, they are 72 weeks old, and I was thinking about getting some of them, but when these came up I jumped at the chance to own my own chickens.
I just don't know what to do really, if they stop laying then they have served their purpose to me as I have them like you do for the eggs. I can't afford to feed 8 hens and get nothing back from them so culling is something that would have to happen.
18 to 30 eggs a day is an amazing amount of eggs, I don't know what I would do with that many, I have had to start to give them to the family as my fridge was starting to look full, and there is only so many eggs I can eat lol.
I do a lot of DIY, I've made planters for my plants that only cost the screws, the wood was from pallets, and these planters were 8 feet long by 2 feet wide and 3 feet tall, it took some doing, then I made one just smaller than that to go next to it, this was what I was using for a fence to stop the scrap man from thinking my garden was his to walk over.
I've made fairy houses for the kids and built shelves from pallets, I just like to use my hands.
I should never have gotten the chickens first but I did, but before that, I should have built the run and coop then it would have looked a lot better than it did, and with having little money I had to build it cheap, so I decided to use recycled materials.
It's nice to chat with another chicken keeper, there are some neighbors of mine that like to tell me what to do with rearing them, and they can't properly look after their own live stock, so having a good natter on here makes me so much happier. hope your keeping well :D
That's so cool @artonmysleeve. Not that I know a lot about building a chicken coop so maybe other homesteaders could comment. All I know is that these days egg is expensive and it's you're lucky having chickens around 😄. By the way did you know about Hive DIY or even DIYHub community? I am sure that they'd appreciate content like yours. Pretty sure the homesteading community too.
I didn't know about Hive DIY or DIYHub, I have been away from hive for a while due to illness and other family on goings, so I have just been using the same hashtags as I normally do. I will however take a look. I have done a lot of DIY posts in the past and not really thought of looking in to communities to post them too.hi @macchiata thank you for your lovely comment, the chickens hadn't been in their new house 24 hours and I got 3 eggs from them today, I was so happy.
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Thank you @diyhub, I have a few more DIYs coming soon and I will be using your hashtag. :D