A girl's castle is her coop

You'd think that finding a chicken coop on a budget for a dozen birds would be an easy thing, right? Yeah, that's what I thought...until I started looking. I think I've missed a calling as  a builder of custom chicken coops.We're talkin' $400 for a small coop that'd fit half a dozen hens, and that's for a no-frills, bargain basement, economy model coop at the local feed store. The kind that we need (a 4X8 sized coop) runs anywhere from $1200 to $2000! And man oh man, these coops are pretty sweet.  They look like something that'd be sitting on Martha Stewart's lawn, with chicken sweater wearing diapered hens gracing the nest boxes and runs - basically nothing that has any business anywhere outside of a HOA neighborhood near actual livestock. Call me crazy, but I just have a problem spending a small fortune on something that will quickly be covered in feathers, bedding and poop in a few days. It just seems like a waste. So, since we have some pullets that seriously need to get out of my laundry room and eating some bugs, my hubby and I found a suitable, quick and easy to clean alternative at the local warehouse store - a vented garden shed - that we'll be retrofitting for the girls this week. Since neither of us has skill with a hammer, nor a fearlessness around power tools (yet), any latent carpentry gene will remain untapped for now. We don't have a whole lot of free time to learn how to build something at this point,  so something pre-made and just needing a lil' bit of retrofitting is our best bet!

 The requirements for our girls at this point is pretty simple - a place for food that's easy for them to get to, but out of reach for potential pests (i.e. rodents, skunks, or bigger critters attracted to the feed, but later more interested in THEM as dinner), a water source that's fresh and easily accessible, a roof over their heads and secure from predators day & night, a roost to sleep on and a sheltered run for them to peck around during the daytime. Once they're bigger we'll be letting them free-range, but since they're prime McMeals at this point for foxes, coyotes and hawks, they're better off in a run!