The Chicken Palace

[The Suburban Farmer]

For anyone interested, the final all-in cost of the Chicken Palace ran me right around $1,700. I had a LOT of framing material and some sheeting left over from other projects, and if I add that in then it probably would be a good bit more, but still probably less than $2K all-in.

The largest single expenses were the shakes and the wire mesh. The shakes were TOTALLY worth the extra cost, though. I really like the way it turned out, and the neighbors seem to think is says "shed" much more than "chicken coop" so they seem happy.

 

[dave1949]

The cost of building materials goes up quickly on a project these days.

Love the fox picture. That's one frustrated fox.

 

[lostcreekranch]

The proof is in the pudding as they say... this fox tried to get into the coop for weeks after we built it, but now he's just given up. When I see him on his morning walk-abouts, he just walks right past the coop and the chickens don't even squawk anymore. It's like the Chicken Palace has a moat. We did lose one girl to a hawk while they were free-ranging one day, but so far the coop has been fully predator proof. <img src="http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/files/projects/416911-chicken-palace-fox-jpg"/>

Great picture! We have to worry about coyotes down here. Great build!

Now ..... calculate your 1st year cost per egg. ;-)

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[The Suburban Farmer]

Now ..... calculate your 1st year cost per egg. ;-)

@rlgustafson -- I already did! Being the Uber-math-nerd that I am, I put together an Excel "egg breakeven" spreadsheet as part of the building plans and figured out that at our current rate of chicken production, I would need about 3.1 years to break even.

Cost of a dozen organic eggs around here: $4.50, or about 38 cents per egg. Cost of my first full year of egg production: about $1.16 per egg.

My average egg production - 4 eggs per day or so, so that would require about 3.1 years, or JUST about the expected productive laying life of these hens. If we add a couple more good layers this spring, I should be able to amortize the cost of the Chicken Palace over something closer to 2 years.

Now I just have to add back in the cost of prescription Lipitor to offset our family's cholesterol problems...



Of course, if I use regular old store bought eggs and not organic eggs as my benchmark, that would take a lot longer...

 

[lostcreekranch]

Well done JD!

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[EddieWalker]

Came out looking nice, but I'm curious about your comment about making it portable. Is that still something you are considering after putting down the gravel and building the outdoors area?

Eddie

 

[The Suburban Farmer]

Yep. Still glad that I made it so that it can be moved. The fenced-in run is easy to pull away from the coop if we need to since it is built as a stand-alone unit, so I can still get the pallet forks under the coop to move it if necessary. It wouldn't be easy, but it's at least possible. Plus, since it's not on a permanent foundation it still meets the requirements to be a "shed" in our area. Technically, if I had dug a real foundation, I would have needed to draw up plans and get them approved... part of the cost of doing business in our somewhat left-wing, over-regulated northern Virginia area. This way, it's still a perfectly legal "shed" and not a "permanent structure."

Actually, I've already moved it a bit. After we put in a big raised-bed garden (multiple beds, full drip irrigation system -- I should post that project sometime) next to the coop later that spring, we realized that the lines were off just a bit when we looked at the backyard from our upstairs window. It just looked the SLIGHTEST bit crooked and off-kilter. So, I took out the 8 screws connecting it to the run, nudged it into alignment with the tractor, reattached the run, re-raked the gravel and we were good to go.

 

[GPintheMitten]

Very nice. Can you post a picture of the side with the laying boxes? (or did I just miss it). Thanks.

 

[The Suburban Farmer]

Thanks. I forgot about the nest boxes... here are a couple of pics. This was built as a single unit and attached with a few screws, so it can be easily removed if we convert from "coop" to "shed" in the future. I still have a row of shakes to put on above the boxes, so please ignore my laziness. Ran out of shakes and never got around to finishing it last summer...

The top is hinged and is lifts up to give access to 4 full size nesting boxes -- MORE than enough. All of our girls use the same box for some reason.

 

[GPintheMitten]

Thanks, great project.

 

[John Dougherty]

Since spring doesn't seem like it wants to show up here in Northern Virginia, I thought I'd post about last spring's first big project -- building the Chicken Palace. It all started with a family trip to Tractor Supply during Chick Days... before I knew what happened, we had added to our brood and it became clear that our little chicken coop wasn't going to be enough for our expanded flock.

First, we emptied out one of my old storage bins, hooked up an infrared light to keep it warm, and life was good:


View attachment 416863

It was the perfect size -- my littlest boy could still see them and play with them, and honestly, it was kind of nice hearing the "cheep cheep cheep" in the corner of our family room.

View attachment 416864

But we knew this little box wasn't going to work for very long, so we started planning for a slightly larger coop. Honestly, we weren't sure how long we would keep chickens, so I didn't want to build a fit-for-purpose chicken coop, but rather something that we could use for something else if this whole "chicken farming" thing didn't work out... so I went into Sketchup and started playing around with ideas. After a few tries, I was confident that I had figured out a dual purpose "first it's a chicken coop, and then it can be a garden shed if we don't like it" design. My original inspiration was a picture I found on the web:

View attachment 416865

After all was said and done, our "slightly larger coop" turned into our "massively over-engineered multi-purpose Chicken Palace." I really do need to learn when "good enough" really is good enough...

No you don't. Tractor people are 'process people'. We like our projects and hate it when they end. We just have to find another one to do after that! Good job.

 

[jix]

My only affair with a chicken coop taught me that RATS love chicken feed...and that the little pests will build a million burrows under the floor. Hadda tear mine down...found seven nest there and counted 56 baby rats alive and ready to go. So you decide.....:thumbdown: