Recycled Material Chicken Coop/Tractor

PHOTO: The Neighbor's Chicken-Fancy-likes to visit and lay her eggs in the rabbit hutch :) She loves the scraps I throw out to my chickens and she loves to snack on my garden vegetables--Isn't she great?



Here are a few photos of my amazing (not really!) Chicken coop/tractor. I was in a tail-spin trying to figure out how I was going to house all of these chickens,ducks, turkeys when the sky opened and a ray of sunshine shone through umm...well...that is when I found or rather my teenage son and his girlfriend found a old green rabbit hutch on the side of the road that said "FREE". He texted me and asked if I wanted it and I couldn't reply "yes" fast
enough. Well.....he came home and loaded up three of his teenage friends and they set out with my minivan to get it. A few minutes later I got a text saying it was to big to fit in the van........boo hoo...... Luckily my neighbor being into chickens before me and having a hand at getting me interested helped us out...or rather he husband did with his truck :) It's great to have chicken loving neighbors...

I was very happy to see that it was a double hutch....and that each end had a outside door that lifted up. Perfect in the future for my Silkie Bantams as they don't get very big. I removed the center wall that sat atop the plexi glass divider. So in the meantime while I'm coming up with a better Chicken Coop they can perch on the plexiglass ledge and use the "nesting boxes" (each end of the hutch) to keep out of the rain etc....I then had some leftover wood from my sons tree house project and I hinged it onto the hutch and used an old hose as treads for the chickens, just cut to size and nailed on with roofer nails. I actually really liked the hose idea because it's easy to cut and nail on and you can wash it down when it gets full of poo....Later on down the road I will use the hutch for new baby chicks.

My other neighbor is always adding to his landscape and has it delivered or he picks it up on pallets...So I asked if he needed them and he gave to me grateful to get them out of his yard. So I decided to build an A-frame housing for either the chickens, ducks, or turkeys...I first took a old pallet and stapled chicken wire to it then I tilted two pallets against each other in a triangle pattern and wedged a piece of wood between them, taking a drill and drilling screws through the pallets into the wedged piece of wood on either side. Then I had some wood left over from my sons tree house project and I actually used a circular saw? (not sure if that's its name) and two saw horses that my Dad left at my house after he build my sons tree house. I was able to cut the wood just fine...made sure nobody was around (like children) I was a bit nervous and had a slight shake, but all worked out fine. anyhow...I then took roof paper and shingles again left over from the tree house project and waterproofed the A-frame. I was also offered a bunch of fencing from the chicken loving neighbors because they sold their huskies and didn't want or need the fence. I used it to build an outside run for the A-frame..wiring the top together and staking the outside 4 pegs down the outside on either side as to not have it collapse outward. That way if it slips it will rest on the stakes and not flatten out. I then covered it with chicken wire at the entrance and some on the top just to make sure predators remain out. (We lost 13 chicks, 2 turkeys) when I first started this adventure due to lack of proper housing.

So check out the photos and leave a few comments or ideas on how to improve them if you like...also send me photos of your recycled materials coops and I'll post them here........