Reusing materials is a great and inexpensive way to house chickens. A few added touches, such as a fancy used door and flowerbeds can make an attractive space no neighbor would think to complain about.

The following pages show many other coop ideas to inspire your coop building decisions. Think outside the box, er, I mean coop!—Ed.

Kirche's Lil Chicken Coop is a modified Little Tikes playhouse that the kids have outgrown.

Mrs. Kirche Taylor, Kentucky

Our local newspaper ran an editorial last summer about the city ordinance on keeping chickens in the city. I have to say the article caught my interest. I love to garden and grow my own produce on a small scale, but the thought of actually being able to collect eggs from my backyard made me giddy inside.

Velma, Lady and Macy

I researched possible coop kits, but the more roomy models were out of my budget. Sometimes we need not look further than right in front of us. When my oldest son was young he took a Little Tikes playhouse, elevated it from the ground, built a deck, railing and stairs. That was about 10 years ago and the boys have since outgrown this house. My dad is an awesome carpenter and with a few modifications, we had a wonderful coop and run. We added nest boxes to the house, built a 12' x 8' enclosure with roofing, added vinyl flooring to deck/house floor and added a reinforced fancy vinyl door. I present to you the chicken mansion we call the "Kirche's Lil Chicken Coop."

We faced a challenge with finding young chickens from a trustworthy source. We did not want tiny chicks, but rather hens that were ready for the outdoors. The first hen, Ruby, was obtained from not-so-great conditions at a flea market. Ruby sleeps in the playhouse sink in the evenings. She prides me with one egg a day. She waits for me to bring her treats and as far as I am concerned can live out her days here with me. I like to think I saved her from a short demise.

Nest boxes came from old dresser drawers and Ruby's favorite roosting spot, the play-house sink are also recycled.

Our other three girls; Velma, a White Leghorn, Lady, a Black Australorp and Macy, a Dominque, were found by chance. My mom and I were lost on the highway looking for what turned out to be another bad poultry source and stopped at a truck stop for directions. My mom asked if they knew of anyone with chickens and the attendant said there was a gentleman that came in every day who was an organic chicken farmer. We took a leap of faith and left our number. He called that afternoon. His birds were just what we needed. He also gave us great advice: "Keep it simple."

The internet is a great source of information, but can also be confusing to new backyard chicken farmers. If you read or ask 10 different people a question, you could get that many answers.

Sometimes the best options are closer than you realize.

Dad, Norman Ford, modified the Little Tikes playhouse and built the run, saving money on a purchased coop. The first hen the Taylors bought was Ruby, obtained from a flea market.

Makeover Offers Endless Entertainment—Twice

Thalia, Hawaii

Thalia built this coop with wood from an old play structure. The nest box (right) was also made from the recycled wood. (Note: we don't recommend placing a roosting bar in front of the nest boxes, as it may encourage the hens to lounge about there and foul the nests.)

Our coop was built from an old wood play structure that was hit by a tree about 3-1/2 years ago and was never quite the same. As my boys grew it seemed to squeak and twist more with their growing size, so I decided to turn it into a chicken coop. The recycle project was a great lesson for my boys.

Taylor, my sister-in-law, was here on vacation and I asked her if she wanted to help.

The only items we purchased were the screws, hinges, latch, chicken wire and corrugated roof.

Thalia's sons enjoyed the play structure, but when it was hit by a tree it became unstable. Once it was turned into a coop, it again offered endless entertainment for the boys, as well as teaching a lesson in frugality.

Nature Provides the Heat with this Solarium

Carol Fishwick, Ohio

I thought you might be interested in seeing our chicken "solarium" which helped keep the hens warm and active during our snowy Ohio winter. A neighbor had had a fairly large (4' x 8') skylight replaced several years ago. I retrieved it from the scrap heap and leaned it up against the back of the barn, without having any clear idea of what I would do with it.

As poultry novices, we didn't realize that the chickens did not care much for ranging in the snow. So in early December we set up that skylight on cement blocks, leaned a couple bales of straw where the wind might come through, and cut a small door in the fencing. They loved it and daily thanked us with a healthy supply of eggs.

The Fishwick's free "Chicken Solarium" offers a warm sunny hangout for the chickens in the cold of winter.

Retiree Finds Poultry Keeping the Cure for Boredom

After 20 years in Florida with chickens, six years ago, I decided to come back home to Kentucky. We bought a home out in the country, just three miles from my hometown of Benton, with a population of about 5,000.

We are retired and we love gardening. That's fine for spring and summer, but at our age we have to spend most of our days in the house during the cold winters.

One day while I was waiting to get a haircut, I picked up a copy of Backyard Poultry. It was wonderful; it told me all I needed to know about curing my winter boredom (get chickens). I subscribed to it, and in my first issue I saw the chicken coop I wanted to build. It was in the Dec. 2009/Jan. 2010 issue, page 32. There was a beautiful coop of flagstone built by the Lantz family of Indiana.

Ken Holland liked the looks of a coop from a past issue of Backyard Poultry but didn't want to spend the money on flagstone. Instead, he used foam board. He cut out stone shapes and painted them various colors to resemble stone. He warns that chickens love pecking the foam board, so he had to fence it off.

On a cold February day we started gathering material to build this 8' x 8' coop. Only I could not afford flagstone. So I bought six sheets of 2-inch thick 4x8 sheets of foam board (not Styrofoam). Foam board is strong and flexible. I then hand carved each stone from the foam board and painted them to look as much like flagstone as I could.

I fastened each piece to the plywood walls with nails and drove them in 1/8" deep and the foam board swelled over the nails and hid them. It worked out good. I needed to hurry; I wanted to order my chickens in March. I built a 35' x 100' barnyard for the chicken run and put 1/4" vinyl strips of spline 18 inches apart all along the top of the fence, then fastened each one to a 25 ' meter pole in the middle of the barnyard. I used this idea 20 years ago and it works perfectly against hawks.

Ken built outdoor perches, and his flock of 62 chickens really enjoy them.

I then put a gate in the back of the run to let the chickens out around noon to forage when the four-legged predators are not so active. I also have an electric wire around the barnyard for the nighttime guys. I built daytime roosting poles in the run and they love them. Little did I know how much chickens love foam board; they are crazy about it and will eat it up! So I had to put screen three feet high around two sides of the coop.

Ro-Ho Adds to Entertainment Factor

Now about Ro-Ho our rooster. He is a Braggs Mountain Buff, only five months old and still growing. He is worth his weight in gold. We have six breeds of chickens: Welsummers, Buff Orpingtons, Blue Laced Red Wyandottes, Cuckoo Marans, Black Jersey Giants and Braggs Mountain Buffs, 62 chickens in all. Our favorites are the Mountain Buffs. They are very gentle and lay big eggs. Ro-Ho is cock of the flock and I have never had a rooster like him in all of my years.

The king of the coop is Ro-Ho, a Braggs Mountain Buff that keeps the flock in line, including chasing them all into the coop at dusk.

When we let our chickens out to forage each day, most of them come in at a normal time to get their treat and to go in to roost, but there are always seven or eight that want to linger till almost dark. Ro-Ho will not put up with that; it looks as if he counts them and knows if they're not all in. Then he stretches his neck and listens and takes off through the gate and up in the woods and slowly comes back driving two or three hens to the barnyard. He is very gentle with them but if they drag their feet too long he will whack one and they will continue on. When he gets them in he heads down into the bushy area and brings two or three more, until he is satisfied that he has them all in. He is the last one to go on the roost pole and then I go down to shut the gate.

One night as I was closing the gate, I noticed a hen coming up that Ro-Ho had missed, so I let her in, but she did not want to go in the coop. I tried to drive her in but she would not go; I was running back and forth, chasing a chicken that is cackling and raising all kinds of cain, and breathing hard at 77 years old. I thought to myself, "What do you think you're doing?"

About that time I heard a loud clunk from the coop. It was Ro-Ho coming off the roost pole and hitting the floor. He came out the little door and took one look at me and came flying and running down to me, and then took over my job. He ran that chicken around and around until she hit that hole and went in. He then stopped and reared back and looked at me as if to say, "This is the way you do it." Then he strutted into the coop and I shut them in for the night.

Ro-Ho's antics are so entertaining that Ken had to set up chairs for the neighbors to watch in the evenings.

I have had a lot of roosters in my day but I have never had one like Ro-Ho. We have had to put chairs at the barnyard for friends and neighbors who come around at 6:00 or 7:00 pm just to watch him work. We are now starting another coop that will be bigger than this one.

Since the salmonella thing came out our chickens can't keep up with the demand for eggs. Country fresh brown eggs are in extreme demand here. We will be building a bigger barnyard to accommodate many more Mountain Buffs.

We love Backyard Poultry and wish it came out every month because we learn so much from other peoples' experiences.

Learn more about the Braggs Mountain Buff in the April/May 2006 issue or the Backyard Poultry Anthology, For the Love of Poultry. You can also find information on the hatchery that raises them at www.braggsmountainpoultry.com.—Ed.