Have you read the story about the search for my chicken coop for sale and what I decided to do? If not, to make a long story short I encountered three big obstacles over 3 weeks of research off-and-online:
1. Cost – Having one shipped within the continental US costs as high as $4,000! It’s because these coops come pre-assembled, and even kits still weigh hundreds of pounds, seriously.
2. Chicken Coop Design – I just couldn’t see why anyone would want to buy a coop that was made in another climate region. Weather varies, and I had read that some people were disappointed because of poor design, overheating, drainage problems. I didn’t want to deal with that. I found a lot of free designs, but once again these were custom built to other people’s needs, not my own.
To skip ahead to the plans I used that are flexible and reliably accurate, go here.
3. Scalability – I wanted to start with 4 chickens, maybe move up to 6-8 once I get the hang of it. Can you imagine paying $2,000 for a pre-built coop only to have to shell out another $4,000+ for a bigger coop and run? Again, I figured the best way to deal with that problem would be to avoid it.
So, by this point you must be wondering about that little “trick” of mine I mentioned. But first, let’s get it straight that buying a coop was out the window and I decided to build my own. Now let me warn you, I am no carpenter or have any past experience in wood working so I was a bit worried at first.
Now I always seem to get good ideas when I’m out in the yard or tending to the garden so I figure I’d go out there for a moment. After a while, it hit me! I’ll get good, reliable plans that don’t suddenly end at 90% completion (I saw one horrid story where that happened!).Then I looked up a few different handymen in the area and gave them a call. Because the plans I bought allow me to print unlimited copies legally, I emailed them the design I wanted built for me which was a small chicken coop with an enclosed area.
In less than 48 hours, I had 4 price quotes. I won’t go through the whole process but this is basically what happened:
1. I bought my chicken coop design plans here, and I really recommend you do too because it’s cheap, easy to follow, and designs for coops small to very large.
2. Called 4 handymen in the paper, emailed the plans, and they emailed me back their price.
3. I picked a guy and scheduled him to come over on Saturday morning to get started, he did.
4. By Sunday afternoon my small chicken coop was completely built to my specs! With paint too…
Here is the result at a cost of under $600 including material and labor:
So why do you want to spend over $2,000 for a pre-built coop that you have no guarantees over? I’d hate to ship it back if I had an issue with the coop…
Click here to go ahead and check out the plans I bought that are solid and reliable, you don’t want to skimp on this. Trust me.