how much for a diy coop

[daddymatty82]

nothing special but i want to build something out of pallets on the bare minimum i got a ready source of pallets i can get about 100 a week free. im going to start having bonfires burning the rubbish in the garden but i like wood on the fire so will use the rubbish bits in that. on a guesstimation what would be better screws or nails, and which size would you go for i really don't want to make one but im thinking if i can get pallets free i may aswell have a go at making something i want/need as its coming to winter i may aswell do something useful with my time now. so main question is how much would i need to spend on nails and screws etc. im not good with making things much so how would you go about it.Im thinking of something similar as this>>

http://www.shedstore.co.uk/garden-stora ... -43-4-by-3

any help or plans would be great

[Jessiebean]

We made one out of pallets, four of them and we were lucky enough to have a big bucket of screws and some scrap roofing iron. Instead of roofing iron you could use pallet boards as weatherboards like we did for the back.
Our pallets were 90cmx90cm .we used them for a frame and stripped most of he boards off. Nearly all the scrap was used for bracing and the weatherboarded end. I guess we used around 60 screws for fixing the iron and making the frame, probably the same for small tacks for attaching the mesh(a 5mx1m roll cost AU$20 our only cost apart from the chickens. The latch, wood and mesh for the door and hinges for the rear door were salvaged.) the pictures are showing in reverse order for some reason. We will move the ark under the apricot tree for summer and I am devising some sort of shingling to put over the iron in winter- made of old car mats (we have a car hire business so have many "spent" foot mats) so hopefully that will help keep the hens at the right temp.

in situ with chickens- you can see both doors.

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showing the primitive bracing.

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initial framework

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[Jessiebean]

By the by we are not carpenters so I would think if you have any carpentry experience that you could make pretty anything out of pallets if you just fiddled around with them.

[dragonoak]

My OH makes the rabbit hutches out of old pallets, and all for free. He gets the bit of wire for the front of the gate free from the scrap yard and hammers out the nails from the pallets and re-uses (well, thats actually my job ). So in theory and a bit of patience you could get it all free which is nice!