When I first started thinking about adding farm animals I wanted to start small. We knew we wanted a few ducks or chickens, well we went with ducks only because a co-worker offered to give me 3 of hers. Starting out we did tons of research and saw these big, beautiful, decorated, perfect coops and of course I wanted that but as a young couple just starting out it was not practical to spend thousands on something we didn't even know if we would enjoy or not!
So we improvised, and I will tell you I hated our first coop from the very time we started building it and was so excited when we tore it down. But with winter coming soon we had to do something quickly, so we collected as many "nice" pallets as we could, found some free metal roofing and fencing, threw it together and we had a coop! Now as ugly as it was, it was 100% free, I never took any pictures of it but trust me it was ugly!
As we made do with this coop every day we learned what didn't work for us and worked great for us when we upgraded our coop. After selling eggs, hatching ducklings and selling those I set aside all of the money we got from eggs and ducklings and searching facebook marketplace and different selling sites we found a shed that used to be a kids playhouse for free! It was a perfect 10 by 10 shed with 2 bunks/shelves fairly close to us. Our only problem was that we couldn’t move it ourselves, so I did some more digging and found someone local who does odd jobs around the area and has the equipment to move small buildings! We paid around $200 to have him move it and a week later it was here!
We helped him get the shed in place and on blocks so it wouldn't move too much and then we had to get to work. It was great to find such an awesome shed for free but free tends to come with fixing something. Once we got it home we noticed the back corner of the roof was a little crushed and that caused some water damage to get inside and rot the corner of the walls out. We fixed the roof, added some new shingles to the corner and replaced the rotting plywood. We also sprayed the floor and halfway up the walls with truck bed lining to make cleaning a little easier. I stained the outside of the building to match the rest of our brooders and deck and that changed the whole look of the shed.
We also added a 10 by 20 fenced in run.
Later on we also added PVC pipe feeders that we made with some PVC pieces we picked up at a yard sale that were also free, with a roof over it so the rain wouldn’t ruin any feed.
Along with garden edging, mulch and herbs to help keep the bugs away
Get creative with it, start small and add when you can, and most of all have fun and enjoy those feathered babies! We had so much fun making everything how we wanted it and mostly spending time together.
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