THE RICHARDSON PROJECT

The Chicken Coop

We’ve wanted to raise chickens for a few years now. In the past, we’ve always been restricted by CCRs, which is one of the reasons we were looking for a few acres. Having that extra space would allow us to try some new hobbies, especially when it comes to animals.

Our plan was to get some chickens once we got settled. Well, things didn’t go as planned…

A few weeks after we moved in, a mama hen was waltzing down our street with her baby chicks in tow. What do our kids do? They jump out of the car and ambush the little chick family and end capturing 5 of them.

So with 5 baby chicks captured, now what do we do? As total newbies, we literally jump on Google and begin our search. What do these things eat? Where do they sleep? What do we keep them in?

We quickly found out how low maintenance these guys are. In hindsight, the chicks were a nice addition to the family, even though they came much sooner than we were planning.

As we’ve mentioned before, this move has not been easy for the kiddos. And so these 5 little chicks became our kids’ best friends. So much so, they each were named: Marshmallow, Sydney, Fluffball, Chunges, and Rolly.

Every day, the first thing our kids would do is go and check on their chicks.

The day came when they outgrew the Amazon box they called their home. So we gave them a nice little upgrade and moved them to our dilapidated greenhouse.

We knew that greenhouse was falling apart and could literally collapse any day. So we began making preparations for a legit chicken coop. Something that would be spacious enough to fit several chickens, would be low maintenance, and wouldn’t be an eye sore.

We looked at several options for buying/building a coop. Ultimately we decided to buy plans for a coop we found on Etsy. We liked it because it was spacious (fits up to 8 hens), has a translucent roof to let in all that natural light, and it’s tall enough for an adult to walk around inside.

This is the one we bought. The plans were inexpensive and saved me from having to figure something out on the fly.

The actual build took about 5 days (I thought we could do it in 2). Luckily, I had Fernando helping me who knows quite a bit about carpentry and helped move a little quicker.

Since the plans were purchased and we want to respect the creator of the plans, we’re not going to share step by step how we built our coop (you can get your own set of plans here). But here are some shots that will give you an idea for how it all came together.

After much deliberation, this was the location we chose. It’s far enough away from the house and it’s hidden from view from the driveway.
The framing begins…
We actually got to set these blocks twice because we measured wrong the first time.
Some days, I wish I built my office in this spot instead of the coop.
The kiddos finally got to help with the project, applying the stain.
It got a little chaotic inside the coop with 4 kids and 4 paintbrushes…
Once we finished staining, it was time for the roof panels. We got these panels from Home Depot in 8′ sheets.
Next up, hardware cloth. We were planning on just getting chicken wire, but the plans recommended hardware cloth as it’s much more effective at keeping predators out.
We buried the hardware cloth about 12″ (per the instructions) to prevent predators from digging under the walls. Getting it buried and wrapped around the corners and making it look good was tedious work but we got it done.
We had a ton of base course leftover from another project so we used it to bury the hardware cloth and really reinforce the base of the coop.
The hen house.
We added a door on the side of the henhouse to retrieve the eggs. Olivia helped finish off the stain.
At this point, we were finally ready to transfer the chickens.
Operation chicken transfer went off without a hitch and the kids were able to move all 5 over to their new home without any injuries. The gloves were probably overkill, but you can never be too careful 🙂
Olivia is not afraid of these teenage chicks. She goes right in there and scoops them up like they’re her babies. And they usually let her.
We installed this automatic water feeder, although ours isn’t hooked up to a hose so it’s not totally automated. But it does keep the water clean and can last a few weeks.

The Finished Product

We love how it turned out. It was way more involved than we were originally planning, but this thing should last a long time and should give us a nice supply of eggs for years to come.

On to the next project!

– The Richardsons

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