Building a Coop

After the Coop Tour I was inspired to jump on the internet to see what it had to offer for coop design. With no real construction skills, I found that building my own might be a challenge I knew I didn't want my coop to break the bank or be some year long project. I wanted to use as many reclaimed materials as possible. Ballard has some great places that offer salvaged doors, cabinets etc from gutted homes www.re-store.org/ was a place to start looking. I found a design online through http://www.backyardchickens.com/ . For the $800 they were offering for this mobile coop, I would attempt building it on my own. I looked no further than the industrial neighborhood in Ballard for scrap wood, pallets and just about any material I thought would be usable. I spent part of the summer designing a chicken tractor which is essentially a mobile coop on wheels. The benefit is that it was small and could be moved around the yard like a wheel barrel. It gave chickens the ability to feed in a confined space and still have shelter at night.