Build a DIY Chicken Palace

Do you want fresh eggs every morning? Have you thought about getting chickens but didn't want to spend a ton of money on a coop? Well then building your own DIY chicken palace for some idiot dinosaurs to enjoy might be for you! I had just finished building a storage shed/barn and used a bunch of the leftover materials on building this coop and figured I should probably make it match the look of the shed so it is way fancier than it needs to be. This could definitely be done a lot cheaper if you recycle or salvage the materials. All in all it cost ~$600 dollars but has been holding up great so far and should hopefully last for multiple years with little to no upkeep!

The chicken palace is composed mostly of stuff that you can pretty easily find at most hardware stores. Since I had designed the run to have pretty wide panels of hardware cloth I had to order a 4' wide roll of it for delivery but that was pretty easy. In general the rest of the needed items were starting from the foundation and working up were:

• Pressure treated 2x6's and 2x4's to frame out the foundation.
• Concrete blocks and galvanized brackets to secure the 2x6 frame.
• 2x3's (could go with 2x4's if you have them around) for the framing of the coop and roof.
• 1x3's for trim and the door frame.
• Hinges and latches for the doors and nest box.
• 3' and 4' wide hardware cloth with 1/4" square openings to make the coop and run rat/racoon proof.
• T1-11 siding for the sides of the coop.
• Plastic paneling for the base/lower part of the walls of the coop to poop proof them.
• 1/2" plywood for the roof, floor and under the cedar shingles.
• Cedar shingles to fancy up the coop.
• Metal roofing and screws to secure it down.
• Various deck screws and galvanized nails.

I used a bunch of different tools to build the chicken palace but most useful were:

• A miter saw to accurately cut the framing angles needed to frame out the roof slope.
• A crown stapler nail gun loaded with galvanized staples to secure the chicken wire to the framing.
• Various other nail guns to frame it out, secure the shingles and the trim.

Overall I spent about $600 on most of the stuff new but you could definitely bring that price down a bunch.

I knew I wanted to get a chicken coop for my momma since she really liked the fresh eggs and having chickens in the coop that me and my dad built for her mostly out of salvaged materials a while ago. I figured I could maybe just buy one and have it done and over with really quickly but they were all super expensive and the affordable ones were pretty crappy and still quite expensive. I really liked the design of the Carolina Coops and based my design off of this one from them. They also have a pretty helpful YouTube channel and this calculator to help you figure out how many chickens can fit in your coop.

I ended up modeling up something based off of the Carolina Coop in SketchUp with an elevated coop above a fully enclosed run, a large door to access the run, a nest box, two doors to access the coop, a section of the wall that hinges down to clean out the coop, two windows for cross ventilation and a single sloped roof to match the look of the shed. The run measured 6'x12' and the coop itself was 6'x4'.

I had a rough idea of where I wanted the coop to end up being but took the time to lay out boards to make sure the footprint of it made sense and felt like the right spot for it. After moving the crappy shed that I had too close to the eventual home of the coop I then leveled out the bit of a slope that I had in the area and framed out a foundation for the coop out of pressure treated 2x6's. I ran a 2x4 down the center of it so that I could use the commonly available 3' long roll of hardware cloth to make sure the run was pretty predator/rat proof. I then dug out spaces to add in concrete blocks to hold the 2x6's in place. I used some concrete anchors and brackets to hopefully hold the foundation in place if the wind catches the slope just right. After backfilling around the foundation I was ready to frame in the coop!

I framed the coop out of 2x3s that I cut on the miter saw to mostly match the look and pitch of the roof of the shed that is right next to it. I basically cut one of the sections so that it looked pretty good as it was in place and then matched that one for the rest of them. I lag bolted each of the 2x3's in to the pressure treated foundation and I then used 2x3's screwed in as cross members between each of the framing sections. I was a little worried this wouldn't be strong enough but it seems to be holding up fine and if it seems like its starting to fail I can always just add metal brackets to any of the connections that seem weak.

After getting the main frame of the coop done I added a 1/2" plywood floor that I covered with some plastic paneling so that it was sorta poop proof. I think laminate vinyl or linoleum would work great here since the paneling I used didn't really glue down well with either construction adhesive or contact cement.

I then cut out and painted siding panels out T1-11 plywood and tacked them onto the 2x3 framing with a siding nailer. I cut holes for the nest box, access to the run, windows, two access doors and a manure clean out door. I then added hinges, handles and latches to hold these mostly closed. After adding some 1x3 trim to hide all of the seams I then started adding some fancy cedar shingling I had leftover from siding my old house and was ready to start working of the roof!

I used just about the same 2x3 framing for the supports of the roof as I did for the coop frame. I had 2x4's leftover from my shed build so I used them as the framing that the metal roof panels would screw down onto. I added them onto the coop using 2x4 outdoor pocket holes. I figured the metal panels getting screwed onto them would stiffen them up and the overhangs weren't very big so it should hopefully hold up. It seems pretty good so far and I'll reinforce them if it starts sagging or looks like it is going to fail. After painting the outer edges of the 2x4's white I was ready to add in a bunch of amenities for the chickens!

The nesting box was roughly 3'x1'x1' with two dividers inside of it and secured onto the framing with some metal brackets. The windows are 1/4" pieces of plywood with some handles screwed onto them that ride in rabbets on the pieces of 1x3 trim to be able to open and close depending on how much ventilation you want in the coop. I then built a ladder that goes from the fancy automatic coop door that opens and closes based on how light out it is down to the run. For nesting bars I went with I think 1" dowels glued into 2x3's that sit on hinges and allow you to pivot them up out of the way if you need to clean out the coop. Finally I added a chicken swing so that they can roost down in the run but they still haven't figured out what it is actually for yet. Next I went about sealing off the actual coop and run!

This step was pretty straightforward and was basically nailing up hardware cloth on every opening between the framing. The pneumatic crown stapler is key to this step. The larger openings required 4' wide hardware cloth which none of the stores near me had in stock so I had to get it delivered. Cutting the hardware cloth with a grinder was the easiest way I found to work with it. We have a bunch of rats and mice in our area so I went with the 1/4" square openings in the hardware cloth but probably could have gone with just normal chicken wire and been pretty fine too.

I added a door that I made out of 1x3's with some self closing hinges, a handle and some latches in this step and then I was ready to finish out the coop by adding the chickens to it!

Finally I filled the coop area up with about 8" of fine pine shavings, the run with a mix of woodchips and fine pine shavings and then added in the chickens! We got them as chicks and raised them in the garage until they were too big for the temporary pen we had them in and then moved them out to the coop! A big watering station, feeder and the deep bedding in the coop make sure they are pretty maintenance free. I added a heat lamp and eventually they figured out how to actually use the ladder to get up and down from the coop to the run. We still haven't gotten any eggs from them but hopefully they enjoy their palace and start laying a bunch soon!