If you don’t have a lot of money, but you want to start raising chickens, use what you have. Look at the structures around your homestead (barn, shed, playhouse, doghouse, etc.).
Lauren’s had this playhouse for the last 4 years and has rarely played in it. Over the years it’s become a storage shed for extra toys and bee equipment. When Lauren realized we were getting chickens and needed a place to store them, we suggested her old playhouse. It doesn’t leak, has windows for ventilation and doors on both sides.
Our plan is to add a chicken run to the back and let the back door remain open so that the chickens can come in and out as they please.
Phase 1 of this project is to frame in the chicken run. As you can tell in the pictures below, we are using 2×4 lumber to extend the run about 10 feet away from the house. The ground here is all rock…no soil at all. Digging a hole for the corner posts would require a jackhammer. We need to keep the snakes, coons, opossums and other critters out, so we will run used fencing underneath the wood on the ground and the timbers to keep animals from digging in. This will eventually be covered with dirt and rocks.
Please ignore the material against the back door. That is currently keeping the chickens in and the critters out.
(And those are potatoes planted in the trough next to the chicken house).
More to come in Phase 2!
