Being a first-time chicken keeper, I did a ton of research on chicken coops. I read everything I could find on different kinds of coops, mostly what I learned was if it had the chicken coop label it had a high price tag, would need some kind of work to make it predator proof unless you were buying the ones like the OverEZ and they were expensive and you were kind of stuck with their set up. I had also decided I didn’t want my nesting boxes on the outside of the coop for a couple of reasons. It doesn’t get super cold where I live but we do get some cold days in the winter months, and I work full time so I can’t always get out in the mornings to check for eggs. It also makes me have to go inside the coop everyday so I stay on top of the cleaning. I started to look into storage buildings as they could be customized for size, doors and number of windows. Some of the small one’s prices were a little cheaper than the chicken coops I had been looking at. Worse case if I decided chickens weren’t for me, I had a storage building and I didn’t waste thousands of dollars. After much thought and research, I ordered a 6×10 storage building from Secure Storage. I had 3 windows added and a single barn door, I kept the back wall solid so I could put a 10-foot-long poop shelf and roost bar across the back wall. Luckly, I have a husband who is handy with most things and we turned it into a chicken coop. We added insulation to the walls and covered it with 3-inch fern strips, cheap linoleum flooring we got from Ollie’s and I made curtains for the windows. I painted with semi-gloss paint and put removable vinyl wallpaper on the back wall for easy cleaning. Although I have to admit there isn’t a lot of cleaning with one chicken. We installed an Omlet chicken door that has worked great, I build the nest boxes and just this past weekend we put hardware cloth over the windows since it was warming up this week. We still need to insulate the ceiling and install fans to help pull the hot air out in the summer. Vivienne seems to like it. Our next project will be the run. I will do a post when that is finished.
