DIY Chicken Projects

Make Your Own Egg Incubator

You could purchase one but if you have a talent for building, it is a rather simple project to build your own. An incubator needs four basic elements to work. These elements are heat, air circulation/ventilation, humidity and a turner.

The one item among these that I would urge you to purchase is the turner. Without a turner, which moves or ‘exercises’ the chick during the incubation process, you would have to manually turn each egg a quarter turn every three to four hours. This can get a little monotonous, and you are liable to forget. The turner is one item that is difficult to build to do what you need it to do. Check out these egg turners available at amazon.com:

 

While you could fashion a makeshift incubator using a cardboard box, you probably want something that will last for a while. This project will create an attractive and fully functioning incubator. You will need the following materials:

 

You can find a vanity cabinet on sale for cheap, especially if the cabinet has been scuffed on the outside. Ideally, it should have a drawer at the top and two doors on the front. Place it in a work area where you have a bit of room.

Measure the opening in the top of the vanity for length and width. If there is not an opening in the top, you will have to create one with a jigsaw. If you purchase a vanity that should have had a sink in it, the opening will be there.

Whatever the case, you will need a piece of Plexiglas cut to fit over the top of the vanity. You can usually get them cut at a home improvement store if you don’t have the tools to cut it. Set it aside if you have it, it’s not time to attach it yet.

Remove the doors from the vanity. Most of these doors won’t have an opening in the center for a piece of Plexiglas. You will have to remove this center of the door while leaving the frame intact. When you have successfully removed the center of the door, measure the space for a piece of Plexiglas.

Remove the drawer and drawer rails from the vanity and check the interior for holes, if there are any, seal them up. Using a 1½ inch hole saw cut a hole about six inches from the bottom of the back of the vanity. Insert a six inch long piece of PVC pipe through the hole from the inside of the vanity. Connect a PVC elbow with the open end pointing toward the top of the vanity. Glue the pieces together.

Insert another length of PVC pipe into the open end of the elbow and glue them together, ideally, the top of the pipe should be one to two inches above the top of the vanity. Secure the pipe to the back of cabinet with two to three PVC holders.

Cut the insulation using the Exacto knife to fit the back, floor and sides of the cabinet. Apply glue liberally to the inside of the cabinet. Press firmly and smooth out the wrinkles, you will be drilling through this later. Let the glue dry for about 12 hours.

While the glue is drying, fit the pieces of Plexiglas to the doors and glue them on the inside of the frame. Each piece of Plexiglas should be about ¾ inch larger than the hole. Let the doors and insulation glue dry.

Leaving the drawer frame intact, remove the bottom of the drawer. You can do this with a jig saw but be careful, it still needs to function as a drawer. Measure the inside width of the drawer then measure the depth of the drawer. Add the number of inches the drawer is deep to the number of inches the drawer is wide. (If the drawer is 28 inches wide and 3 inches deep add 28+3+3 to get 34 inches.) Cut a piece of hardware cloth at that length.

Start at one end of the drawer and staple the material to the top edge. One staple every two inches should work. Smooth the hardware cloth down the one side of the drawer and staple it on the inside. Staple it as close to the bottom of the drawer as possible.

Run the hardware cloth along the bottom of the drawer to the other side. Stretch tightly and staple to the other end leaving that extra length (for the depth of the drawer) free. Staple from the bottom upward on this end of the drawer. This will create a surface that will allow air and humidity to flow through and around the incubating eggs. Cut strips of insulation to line the inside edges of the drawer, glue them over the hardware cloth.

Measure eight inches up from the bottom of the cabinet, find that spot inside the cabinet and using a one inch hole saw drill a hole in the center of the cabinet. If you are comfortable with installing electrical wires, you could attach an outlet on the inside at this hole. If you don’t, you could attach an extension cord and plug in a multiple outlet on the extension cord. You will need an outlet for a fan, a floodlight and the turner.

Whichever you choose to do, once you are done with that, you can reattach the drawer railings to the inside of the cabinet. Insert the drawer and check for ease of sliding. Now it is time to apply the Plexiglas on the top of the cabinet. Glue it down firmly and let the glue dry for 12 hours.

Reattach the cabinet doors and check for ease of opening and closing. Place a pan inside the cabinet underneath the open six inch piece of PVC and fill halfway with water. Place a sponge in the center of the water pan. This PVC pipe will be how you will replace the water without opening the cabinet. Plug in the floodlight and fan and turn them both on.

Check the temperature after 12 hours, it should be holding steady at 99 – 101 degrees Fahrenheit. If it runs too hot, you might try using a heat sink inside the bottom of the incubator. A heat sink is a quart sized Mason jar filled with water and sealed with a lid. The water will absorb the heat if there is too much, and will give off heat if the temperature drops. If this doesn’t work you may need to drill some ventilation holes in the side of the cabinet.

Your cabinet incubator

Building Coops

Here you will find instructions on how to build a variety of styles of coops. What you build will end up depending on your budget and needs. The truth is, you don’t need to spend a lot of money to build a coop. Many of them can be completely built for under $100. Just remember, for each of these coops you will need that essential layer of chicken wire underneath the coop. If the coop is too wide for a single length of chicken wire, use cable ties to secure both pieces together inside the coop.

The Cheap Immovable Coop

Building this coop may cost you a few bucks in gas, twenty dollars in wire and screen and maybe five dollars in screws. But that is it. This is a coop that you build when you don’t have a lot of time and don’t mind that you will not be able to move it once it is built. No, not even if you are the manly man, don’t even try.

You will need:

 

First, make sure the area you are placing this coop in is level. Where two pallets come together on the ground it’s best to have them as level as possible. Next, put down the initial layer of chicken wire on the ground where you are putting the Cheap Immovable Coop. If you are having trouble with it rolling up while you are building put some bricks on either end.

Next, lay down one of the five pallets over the chicken wire, this will be your ‘ground pallet’. Cut a piece of hardware cloth to fit over the top of this pallet. Staple liberally and leave no area where a weasel or mink can squeeze inside between boards. Five staples through the hardware cloth on each horizontal board would not be too many.

Place a second pallet vertically on the left side of the first one. The edges of the ground pallet should be even with the left pallet. Drill eight 3 ½ inch deck screws through the vertical pallet into the ground pallet. Repeat on the right side of the ground pallet. Now you will have an odd looking box of sorts.

Decide which end of this ‘box’ you want to be the front of your coop. Place a third pallet on the ground where you want the rear of the coop to be. Cut a section of hardware cloth and staple to the rear ground pallet. Line up the two ground pallets and secure together with 3 ½ inch deck screws. Take a fourth pallet, line it with hardware cloth as with the others and place it on the rear ground pallet to form the back wall of the cheap immovable coop. Screw this fourth pallet to the rear ground pallet and the left and right sides of the coop.

You should be able to see a clear box pattern emerging with an extra pallet to the rear as support for the back wall. Don’t worry about the odd pallet you will be using it more extensively later. Cover a fifth pallet with hardware cloth and set it ‘hardware cloth side up’ on top of the odd box to complete the box shape. Secure top pallet to the left, right and rear pallets. The edges of the top pallet should line perfectly with the pallets below.

You now have a choice depending on how many birds you are wanting to house. Each ‘box’ should fit two birds comfortably. So if you are housing more birds, you can ‘stack’ pallet boxes or place them side by side. That rear ground pallet can then become the floor for a box facing the opposite direction. Side by side is easier, but takes up a lot of room.

All you will need now is a door to access the coop. For this you can use scrap lumber from the sixth and seventh pallets to frame a four foot by four foot door. Build two frames wide enough to safely close the box in. Staple a cut piece of hardware cloth over one frame. Then screw the second frame down over the hardware cloth. This will make is more difficult for a predator to pry the wire open.

If you choose to ‘stack’ the pallets, first, make sure you have help because those pallets can seriously injure you if they fall. Second, you will need to use bracing to support the stacked pallets. You will need two eight foot long 3X3 posts. At each side before you lay down chicken wire, dig a two foot hole. Place one post in each hole and make sure it is plumb. These walls will be eight feet tall, keep that in mind when building the doors and roof.

When you add the ground pallet it should slide easily onto the three posts. One on the left, another on the right and the third placed to the rear. When stacking the pallets, slide the pallet over the three posts and attach with a generous number of screws.

Reinforced plastic and/or insulation can be added to the outside of the structure as a roof and sides to keep the birds warm and dry.

Cheap immovable coop made out of recycled shipping pallets.

The Hoop House Coop

The next cheapest option for building a coop is the Hoop Coop or Hoop House. It costs about $80 for a coop with 64 square feet. It doesn’t require a lot of work and can be put together by two people in about three hours.

You will need:

 

Plot out the location of your new hoop coop. lay out the chicken wire base, place the 2x4x6’s together in a square with a 4x4x8 post at each corner. Gauge where each corner will be located and dig a two foot deep hole at each corner. Place a post at each corner; make one last measurement before attempting to concrete the posts in the ground. The 2x4x10’s should screw into the outside of the posts at either end.

Place one of the cattle panels into the frame you just built, the leading edge of the cattle panel should be placed right behind the 4×4 fence posts inside the frame. **Get help with this step, it is easy to do but can seriously injure you.

Have a friend hold one end of the cattle panel inside the frame while you push the other end toward the center. This is tougher than it sounds the cattle panel will resist being bent upward into a bow. Place the other end of the cattle panel in the frame and try to get it to fit as close to the ground inside the frame as possible.

Ideally, the cattle panel should be touching the front two posts. Take a one to two foot piece of scrap wood and sandwich the cattle panel between the wood frame and the scrap wood. Drill a deck screw through the scrap wood, preferably somewhere over one of the horizontal bars on the cattle gate. This will prevent the cattle gate from flying off and injuring someone. Repeat this procedure on the other side of the frame. Do this once in each corner and twice in the center of the coop.

Unroll a length of hardware cloth over the hoop you have created. Use zip ties to secure the screen to the cattle panel bars inside the hoop. Staple the bottom length of the hardware cloth to the bottom frame. Pull the length tightly on the other end, make sure there is no bowing or gaps. Apply a zip tie every six inches along each side. Repeat for the second cattle panel.

Frame a back wall to the hoop coop using the posts as guiding points. For a hoop coop, you can use a simple frame construction of hardware cloth and 2×4’s or you can enclose it completely using plywood. If you do use plywood, make sure to leave an area in the center for ventilation.

Build a door frame for the front wall. For a coop this size, you are going to want to make a door big enough for you to get in. If you aren’t confident in building a door frame, you can purchase these at home improvement stores.

Right now you may notice a small gap between the back wall frame and the posts as well as a gap between the front wall frame and the posts. Close up this gap with a strip of either chicken wire or hardware cloth. If the gap is larger than 2 ½ inches, there are creatures that can and will exploit this to their advantage.

After you have inspected the entire structure for more gaps, unroll a layer of reinforced industrial strength plastic over the hoop. Staple one end to the bottom frame, stretch it tight over the hoop and staple on the other side at the bottom frame. You can place a furring strip over the plastic and screw the furring strip to the bottom frame.

Inside the hoop coop, you can place a couple of eight foot dowel rods across the top, giving the birds somewhere to roost. Nesting boxes can be either suspended on the inside bars of the hoop coop or placed on the ground. With the height and space, it’s hard to beat the hoop coop for the price. You can fit sixteen chickens in a hoop coop.

The hoop coop house.

The Reasonable Movable Coop

 A Finished ‘A’ Frame Coop

You will need:

 

Make a 45 degree angle cut on one end of each of the 2x4x6’s. Two of the 2x4x6’s should fit together to form a triangle where the two cut edges meet. Form two triangles using the 2x4x6’s. Secure the wide end of the triangle to another 2x4x6 to complete the triangle. Make sure the narrow end is touching cut end to cut end. This may be difficult to screw together without damaging the wood. For now, use glue to keep the narrow ends together.

Have a friend hold one triangle with wide end down while you screw one of the 2x4x12’s to the bottom of the left side of the triangle. Use three self tapping screws to attach the triangle to the wood. Repeat on the right side of this same triangle. Secure the other end of the 2x4x12 to the bottom of the second triangle on both sides. Right now, you should recognize it as an “A” frame structure with the triangles being held upright by the 2x4x12’s.

Form a third triangle with the two remaining cut boards. Use the 2x4x6 as a brace to hold the third triangle at the correct angle. Measure six feet from the end of the bottom 2x4x12 boards and place the third triangle in the center of the frame.

Cut a 1X2 piece at a 45 degree angle on both ends. Turn the pointed sides down and screw this piece into each triangle to act as a brace. You place it where the piece would make the triangle resemble the letter “A”. Repeat for the other two triangles.

Measure three feet down from the top left side of the “A” frame lay a 2x4x12 across the length of the coop and secure it to the side through each of the three triangles. Three self tapping screws through this board into each triangle should be sufficient. Repeat on the right side of the coop.

Using two more 2x4x12’s and ¼ inch plywood cut to fit across the top of the coop, fashion a door that is easy to open for you to get access to the eggs and to clean the coop. Don’t attach the door yet.

Here you have two options for the floor in the upper section of the coop. The first is the all out build using plywood cut to form the floor with an opening and a ramp for the chickens to climb up into. This will be sturdy, but will make the coop very heavy to lift and move.

The second option is to stretch a piece of hardware cloth or chicken wire across one end of the coop to form a floor. This lessens the weight and clean up, just make sure to store the food and water on the other side of the coop. A nesting box can be as simple as a milk crate tied to the hardware cloth or chicken wire with zip ties.

Now attach the door and decide if you want the door to open from the bottom or the top. Place the hinges appropriately. You can build another door for the other side of the coop, but this isn’t necessary. You can just screw a plywood roof to the side.

Staple a cut piece of hardware cloth or chicken wire to the outside of the “A” frame, stretch tightly and staple liberally. One staple every inch and a half along the bottom and up each leg of the “A”. Continue stapling the cut pieces of hardware cloth to the outside of the coop. Some predators can pry the edges of screening open, you may want to place a few furring strips where the edge of the cloth meets wood.

Here is a big hint when building a coop this large that you will want to plan for. You will need handles to be able to pick this coop up and move it around. The handle should extend at least two feet from the end of the coop.

Check along the outer perimeter of the coop for areas where the ground isn’t level. Place a layer of gravel or rock in those spots over the chicken wire on the ground.

A finished ‘A’ frame coop.

Chicken Tractor

Except for the immovable coops made with pallets and the enclosure, just about any coop can be turned into a chicken tractor by adding an axle and two wheels. Here are a few words of caution:

 

You will need an electrical conduit pipe and two wheels. First, measure the wheels you purchased. The center of the wheel where the electrical conduit pipe will run needs to lift the coop high enough up off the ground to move it. If the wheel is three inches tall, the center of the wheel is one and a half inches. That means that the hole you have to drill into the bottom frame of the chicken coop to insert the conduit pipe through has to be less than one and a half inches off the ground.

Lift the coop gently off the ground and place a brick or block of wood underneath while you do this. The conduit will have to run in a straight line from the left side to the right side with enough remaining to place wheels on. Make sure there is a straight line of access so the conduit fits all the way through. Place the wheels on the conduit and lift up at the handles. Move the coop to where you want it, set it down and remove the wheels.

One way to solve the problem of adding wheels to a coop that already exists is to find a used 9×9 trailer and build the coop in the bed of the trailer. Even if the floor is close to disintegrating, you can frame a nice coop inside and use expansion metal for the new floor. Clean up will be easy as the feces will fall to the ground into the bedding so you can gather it up and compost it.

Here is an example of one without wheels available at amazon.com: Ware Premium+ Backyard Hutch

You can find detailed plans on a “A” Frame style chicken tractor on own blog: simplelivingblog.net

The Repurposed Coop

If you are fortunate enough to have a shed that is rarely in use, or infested with wasps you can use it for a coop. While there are many variations of things you need to do to get it ready, depending on the size and condition it is in, there are a few basics that should have you covered.

 

The Chicken Run

In some ways, building the chicken run is much easier than building the coop. In others, it is a lot more difficult. The run should be at least as large as the coop possibly larger. If you are not at all confident in your wood working abilities, you may want to consider a chain link fence run with a chain link roof.

Calculate the amount of chain link fence you will need. You will need a fence that is tall enough that you can enter if there were a roof over that fence. So six feet is a good start. You will need a fence post for every three feet and a gate post. Use a chalk line and measure out the area you want to enclose.

Dig a hole every three feet along the perimeter and dig the holes for the gate poles where you want the gate to be. The holes should be twelve to fourteen inches deep. Secure the posts with concrete and let the concrete dry. Using the fence wire attach one end of the chain link to the first pole to the left of the gate pole.

Tie that chain link to each pole with the fence wire. Secure the bottom extra well. Once the chain link perimeter is formed around the coop area, unroll a length of hardware cloth at the bottom of the fence and secure to the fence so no predators can reach through and grab a bird.

Install the gate hinges onto the gate pole. It’s probably best to have the gate swing out rather than in.

Okay, your enclosure is built! Add some places for the chickens to climb fly and run at full speed and it will be an almost perfect chicken sanctuary. What would make it perfect? A roof to keep the chickens in, predators out and let sunshine and air flow freely through the enclosure. Depending on how large the enclosure is, the type of roof you can use may change. As long as the birds get inside the coop at night, a roof is more of an option than a necessity.

The Spinning Compost Drum

As stated before, the action of spinning the compost accelerates the composting process exponentially. So the alternative is to build a compost bin that will require you to physically turn the compost over several times a week. You could have rich compost in less than half the time.

For building the spinning composting drum, you will need the following:

 

Stand

 

Start with the drum itself. Find the exact center of the top and bottom of the barrel. Using a two inch hole saw, cut a hole in the center of both the top and the bottom of the barrel. Insert the PVC pipe through the center hole and check the fit. There should be enough of the PVC pipe emerging that the pipe can rest in a stand and let the barrel spin freely.

Place the barrel on the ground horizontally and using a hole saw cut a series of holes across the surface of the barrel. The holes should be uniform and evenly spaced. These holes allow air flow which is an important part of composting.

 Cut an eighteen inch by eighteen inch door in the side of the barrel. Use a power screwdriver or drill to attach the hinges and hasp.

For the stand, take two of the 2×4’s, place them on top of each other and measure down ten inches from the top of the board. With that spot ten inches from the top forming the place where the two boards cross, drill three self tapping screws in at that ten inch spot. Repeat for the other end of the stand.

Take the remaining two 2×4’s and lay them across the bottom of the stand. Secure these planks to the stand to make the bottom sturdy. Place the barrel with PVC pipe extended into the stand and practice spinning.

DIY spinning compost drum.