The Bored Engineer’s Coop
My demotion to “go-getter”
Covid was a disaster in many ways on many levels, but for our family, it was the gift of time. Suddenly we were all back in the house together, working on projects and going on daily walks. My college-sophomore daughter (soon-to-be-teacher) and our college-junior son (soon-to-be-engineer) were not as amused with being ripped out of their daily college lives. Luckily we had many garden projects, and the chicken coop I nick-named The Bored Engineer’s Coop to build.
When we moved to NH and began building The Empty Nest Garden, we knew we wanted a chicken coop. We had a wild yard to tame, the college kids were home due to covid, and our newly minted empty-nesting status was shattered. I didn’t hate it.
The Bored Engineer’s Coop
The thing about engineers is, well, they’re only happy when they’re building. What I had at home, during covid, despite online classes, was a bored engineer. Ever since he was a little boy, he’d build or make things for me – which I adored. As he got older, these acts of service projects would turn into substantial projects I needed or wanted to be done. So, we’d assign them a holiday, and they were my gift.
The Bored Engineer’s Coop counted as mother’s day, my birthday, and my Christmas gift. Pretty sweet deal, right?!
Location, Location, Location
The first decision was where to put the coop in the yard. For someone who has no problem making decisions, this one stumped me. Suddenly, we had too many potential options with this yard. Luckily, my husband was a bit insistent, and the spot he chose turned out to be great. The key is to be near enough to the house that getting five-gallon buckets of water from the spigot to the coop in the winter is not a nightmare. Also, you’ll be hauling feed and picking up eggs daily – wind, rain, or snow. Lastly, if you want to incorporate electricity, the location of the house or the distance you’ll be willing to trench a line is something to consider.
Clearing the Land
At first, we thought we could remove one dead pine tree and begin building. Then we noticed all the bittersweet. Then we began to notice all the bittersweet throughout the property! Bittersweet, if you’re unfamiliar, is an invasive vine common in New England. If you’ve ever seen a stand of trees that look like they have been enveloped in a net, that’s bittersweet.
Bittersweet grows straight until it grabs onto a weed/branch/limb and climbs its way up and around trees like a vine, eventually strangling the tree in its weight. The roots are a mat of thick fingerlike vines about 2-3” beneath the soil. The roots are orange, so they are unique and readily identifiable in the humus-rich New England soil. Let’s just say we started to become experts in the orange roots, green sprouts, and floppy leaves waving in the breeze. All told, we had thirteen substantial, bittersweet stands. Unbeknownst to us at the time, one was directly underneath the base of the coop.
Kind Neighbors
We have great neighbors. I’d mentioned our neighbor across the street who brought his push-behind bush hog to help us clear the saplings for The Empty Nest Garden. Well, we have another awesome neighbor next door. If possible, I wanted to reuse materials for the coop as I had before in our first coop, How NOT to Build a Chicken Coop. So, I asked the neighbor next door if he had any wood he wanted to clear out of his garage. The next day he brought over some vintage barn wood and painted trim. He had saved the wood for a project he had lost interest in and was happy to donate it to our project. I have to say; the coop looks pretty sweet with that old barn wood!
Demoted to the Go-Getter
The engineer has helped me build many things when he was younger, including; garden boxes for The Gardening Passion Expands, a composter, a chicken tractor, and the How NOT to Build a Chicken Coop. But this was different; our roles were reversed this time. I was demoted to the “go-getter,” and to be totally honest, I was relieved. It was a big job in my eyes. The garden and yard were still in the clearing out and cleaning up phase, the yard has a pretty substantial grade, and I was running out of energy. I was happy to pay for the wood, “hold this,” and “go get” x, y, z. Including the pre-requisite 75 trips to the hardware and lumber store that all construction projects require, the coop was built in no time.
Chickens
Chicken Pox here is a Barred Rock known for being a friendly, sweet, and docile bird. We like them because they are pretty easy-going. They lay roughly four light brown medium-large eggs per week or 200+ per year (depending on the hours of light in a day). When choosing a chicken breed, it’s important to take into account the weather (we stick to cold-hardy birds), temperament (choose a more docile breed if you have kids), and how many eggs they lay on average and color, if that is important to you.
Electricity
The thing with electricity is – you may think you don’t need or want it for the coop. But it sure makes life easier in the winter once the temperature drops, electricity to the coop allows you to have a heated automatic waterer! After more than a decade of chicken keeping, it’s a fact that hauling poopy frozen water buckets into the house flat-out sucks. The heated automatic waterer is worth its weight in gold once that temperature drops. Also, if you intend to collect eggs all winter long, you’ll need lights. Although we treat our birds to daily treats, a huge run, and grass in the summer – our birds are considered egg-producing machines. So lights to the coop allow them to lay all winter. After all, someone’s got to pay for that feed!
Work smarter, not harder
The name of the game is automatic feeders and waters. Simply put, it keeps the food and water cleaner and allows you to keep chickens with much more relaxed time constraints. In addition, the automated food and waterers create a weekly “fill up,” allowing us to enjoy the chickens without daily maintenance, besides dropping off snackies and picking up eggs.
FREE Coop Materials
- Free coop plans from a friend
- Free vintage barn wood from the neighbor
- Free painted trim from the neighbor
- Free shingles from Facebook Marketplace
- Free roosts – green saplings
- Free ladder – green saplings
- Free door – old placemat
Coop Expenses
- Everything else!
- 2” x 4” for the frame
- Pine slats plywood for the floor, roof, nest dividers
- Cinder blocks
- Linoleum squares
- Pine slats for the outside
- Hardware
- Plastic buckets for nesting boxes
- Five-gallon buckets for automatic waterers
- Five-gallon bucket for automatic feeder
Chickens – Are they worth it?
Chicken keeping is not cheap. I wouldn’t even say it’s economical. But it is fulfilling in unexpected ways and worth the effort, in my opinion. There is nothing quite as sweet as the peep-peep-peep of new chicks in the spring, that’s for sure. Or the happy little throat gurgles of appreciation when we rearrange the electric net for green grass. And did I mention those little dinosaurs are quite the composters? We haven’t thrown away any foodstuff since the day we built a coop more than a decade ago, and that feels pretty good. I’m all for making things easier.
~Lola
“There are no gardening mistakes, only experiments!”
If you keep chickens, what was a game changer for you?
Coop Gadets to make chicken keeping easier!
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Gardens we’ve built
Why I Garden; if you grow it, they will eat it
Community Oasis Garden; exploring the passion
The Gardening Passion Expands; the garden that created a bidding war
Quick Turn Garden; two years and counting
The Empty Nest Garden; totally out of control
Coops we’ve built
How NOT to Build a Chicken Coop
The Bored Engineer’s Coop
This post may contain affiliate links. These affiliate links help support this site. For more information, please see our disclosure policy. Thank you for supporting The Gardening Passion!
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