Before we know it, our chickens will be ready to move outside into their new home. It's time to get their coop and run built, painted, and ready to go.
Where and what to buy
After doing tons of online research, we decided to purchase our coop at Farm and Fleet. It seems like many times people purchase these ready to build coops, they come with several broken and/or missing pieces. If you order from Wayfair or other online stores, that poses a problem. With purchasing it from our local Farm and Fleet, we would easily be able to return and exchange it if there were any issues. Also, this coop had pretty decent reviews. We purchased the Ware Pets Products Premium+ Big Dutch Barn Chicken Coop with Pen. We got it on sale for $375.
Building our coop
Because our chicken journey has been meant to be a project for the kids, we had them do as much of the work as possible. We really wanted them to have the feeling of "Wow! I just built a chicken coop!" at the end of the day, not just, "I helped Dad build the chicken coop." They started with laying out all the pieces and reading the directions. Bit by bit, the two of them got the thing put together, with a little help from Dad.
Modifications
As you can see in the picture above, the coop came with a wooden door that slid across to close. We decided to purchase the Run-Chicken Automatic Door so that we could program it to open at sunrise and close at sunset. The door we purchased opened up and down, so my hubby had to do some modifications to make it work. We like the door, but we wish that we could open and close it with our phone. You have to use your phone to program it, but can't control it with your phone.
Painting the coop
This coop isn't weatherized so you have to take some time to do that. We primed the whole thing with outdoor primer and then painted with an outdoor Sherwin Williams paint. Because we were unsure of how the HOA would respond, we painted it to match our house and fence.
We built a chicken coop!
A few finishing touches
Of course I had to whip out my Silhouette Cameo and bust out a few signs to give it a more personal touch!
That's it! Building the coop only took a couple hours. The painting took a few days. To make the signs, I purchased blank wood signs and planks from Hobby Lobby. I painted them the same color as the chicken run. I used my Silhouette Cameo to create the sign designs and cut it out of adhesive vinyl. If you want to purchase the cut file for the Welcome to the Coop sign, you can click here.