How to Build a Chicken Coop

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Transcripts

Galen Bontrager: My name is Galen Bontrager. I am the owner and operator of Galen Bontrager Farm, based out of Wellman, Iowa and we will be showing you today, how to assemble a chicken-coop.

We will be doing that in several different steps. Our first step will be to assemble the basic frame and the cross bracing on that frame. Second we will assemble the nest box and the ladder that will go into the nest box. Third, we will assemble the top cover on the back end of the pen. Next step we will wrap the chicken wire around the pen and also a metal frame in the back end. Next we will assemble the front cover frame of the pen and then fasten chicken wire to the front frame as well. Some of the tools that we are going to working with, we will have different screws, hinges of various sizes and I will point those out to you as we get to them. We also have different sizes of chicken wire, two foot wide pieces, about 20 foot long and then a six foot wide piece, cut it about 52 inches. The lumber we will be working with is going to be pressure treated, 1x6s and pressure treated 2x4s. These will be in various sizes ripped in a half or ripped in a thirds in some places. The bottom boards are ripped in half, once towards the base for little more sturdiness along the ground and then 2x4s will be ripped in half for some of the bases at the front and back as well as for our corner pieces. The two of we will be using include a battery powered drill, 14.

4 volt Dewalt drill, with a Phillipshead Screwdriver and I also have a quarter inch nut driving bit, that we will use as well for the different kinds of screws that we are using and I also have a pencil and a measuring tape. I recommend a 10 to 12 foot length for the project that we are doing. Some of the basic safety issue that we are dealing with we assemble this pen, just remembering working with the ends of the chicken wire, those ends are kind of sharp, the wood will be ripped, so there might be some rough edges on it, sharper tips on the screws. So just handle these with caution and I am sure you will be just fine. As I mentioned, I am Galen Bontrager Farm, based out of Wellman, Iowa. I call myself Your "Beyond Organic" Farm Food Connection. My feature products are Salad Bar Beef, Salad Bar Lamb, Pastured Broilers, Pastured Turkey, and Pastured Eggs. I currently produce about 130 eggs a week. I have two hundred laying hens and what you will see here today is a pen size about four foot wide by eight foot long by two foot high. This is a little bit smaller than some of the pens that I use with my larger production, but the basic frame designs and everything are the same, the concepts are the same. So let's get started with assembling our chicken-coop.

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