I have learned so much about estimations and weather. I thought I could knock this thing out in a few weeks. For those counting, it’s been 13 weeks since January 5th 2025. A sprained ankle delayed me a little bit, but most of my miscalculation was due to not being realistic about Western Washington weather. If you watch the build video, you will see me cover my material and work quite a few times for incoming storms. If you look at the date stamps, you can see I only spent about 9 full days working in all that time.
Safety
All in all it went very well. I can say that doing it as a one man job without a tractor would have been impossible. I used it in so many different ways. I like to build safe, and the tractor came in huge for that. I use pallet forks with my tractor constantly, so when I saw a safety cage that I could put on them, I picked it up for trimming trees. It turns out building is so much easier when you feel safe. I used it for painting, putting on trim…most things I would do more than 4′ off the ground with a ladder. It was really great for the roof where I could put my tools and fasteners on it before putting it in place.
New Tools
Part of how I budget DIY projects is making sure that the money I am saving in doing it myself adds some capabilities to my kit, and this project was no different. Over the course of the project, I picked up:
- DeWalt 20V MAX 21-Degree Framing Nailer
- DeWalt 20V MAX 30-Degree Framing Nailer
- DeWalt 20V MAX 18-gauge Swivel Head Shears
- Jackery Explorer 880 Power Statiion
- Titan PGD2875 Gas-Powered Post Driver
The framing nailer I knew I wanted right away so I ordered it with the materials. I am already well invested in the DeWalt 20V MAX platform, so I buy the tools bare without a battery, charger, case, etc. After building the first wall, I knew I wanted a 21-degree for putting on the plywood sheets. Between nailing in places you can’t swing a hammer and toe-nailing perfectly every time, zero regrets.
The shears were a different situation altogether. Most of the roof cutting I ended up doing with an angle grinder because the shears couldn’t navigate the corrugated panels. Even at the end I needed to cut a straight line up a flat panel and it got about 1/3 of the way and wouldn’t grab the metal anymore. I used the angle grinder to finish that too.
I used the Jackery Explorer 880 to power the new coop while I finished the build and to power a corded drill when I cut the 4″ holes for vents. That was a big of a future pickup. I have a smaller one I was using that died pretty quickly, but it’s for use in the house in a power outage to charge portable devices. The Jackery will stay in the shop for when I need power somewhere else on the property. 5-acres is more than an extension cord can handle often.
The last bit is also for the next part of this project. I have the T-posts and fencing to create a 6′ predator fence around a big area for the chickens to free-range in. I’ll start that when the weather picks up, but we have a lot of rocks and these are 8′ posts so there was no way I am doing that with the manual driver I have.
Wrap-Up
How did it go? What would I change? It’s a bit early for iteration, but I do have cameras around so I can monitor their behavior and make adjustments. I also took the electronics part of it more seriously this time. That was more learnings from the last coop, but there is a metal box with a PoE switch connected to the shop so I have some expansion room without running more ethernet from the shop. I also installed a temperature and humidity controlled exhaust fan. I built a solid cover for it so we can cover it if it gets too cold, but it does have slats that lower when it’s not running.
As for automation goes, I added the door and window to our alarm system so we can hear if something were to get the door open and know if we forgot to close the window. I did hardware mesh over the screen on the outside in case we want to leave it open all night in the summer.
The last bit of automation kit was a Christmas present that finally got installed. We love the Omlet stuff and they released a WiFi enabled coop door. Now we can open and close it remotely.
Outside of the weather, the built went as smoothly as possible. I had to tweak the design to get around the 78″ door in the plans I used, it was pretty much cut and build. The chickens seem to be much more interested in using it when it’s not nice outside. The old coop was a dark 3×3 cube that they only used to lay eggs or sleep. The new coop is also where they are fed now, which helps dramatically with the squirrels.
The end total ended up being about $5,000USD. Given that a lesser quality shed from the big box store is double that without a foundation, I feel pretty good about where I ended up and it was a ton of fun to build.
