Radical Homemaking | Chicken Coop Design

It's Monday! Time for another installment of my ongoing series about Radical Homemaking. As most of you know, I am very eager to transition our home from one that is consumption based to one that is predominantly production based. And we are well on our way. This year I've installed a garden and compost bin, hung a laundry line, begun making my own breads and yogurt, and invested in the sharing economy by space sharing, connecting with vendors at our local farmer's and bartering for goods and services. It's been a great year. I've saved money, conserved resources, enjoyed more time with my family and had a lot of fun in the process.

This week, I'm tearing out sad looking bushes, digging out a building site and creating a level base on which to build our new coop. My chicks are over two weeks old now and the clock is ticking. After perusing a ga-jillion Chicken Coop boards on Pinterest, my builder friend and I have come up with a design that will function the way I need for our particular space and be pleasing to look at as well. It will be situated in the back corner of our house with plenty of space for our four egg-laying ladies. Here's my initial sketch:

My friend is building the actual coop, I'm just handling the prep work and will serve as his building assistant. We've been collecting materials all summer for this sweet little structure and I'm happy to say that the entire coop is going to be created from re-purposed and recycled materials. The wood, wire, tin, doors, windows and hardware are mostly from tear-downs and old dilapidated barns and out buildings. I wanted everything about this project to be sustainable and inexpensive.

Here is the photoshopped mock-up he sent to me, pieced together from photos of other coops. In the end, it will probably be a different color, but this gives us a great idea of how it will look in our own space.

This week, I'll be creating a base for the coop. 

It will probably look something like this when I'm done: 

I'll be checking back in as we build our coop, but our goal is to have 

the coop completed and ready for chickens by November 1.