Hello. I’m Gelan Bontrager. I’m the owner and operator of Gelan Bontrager Farm based out in Wellman, Iowa. And we’re doing this video on how to build a chicken coop.
This first step you’ll see is assembling the basic and the crust bracing for that frame. With what we’re doing here, we start out first with the basic frame. We have that 2-foot piece on the end. We’re putting together the eight foot length first and that goes on the sides. So we use this 2-foot piece for our vertical. And then the 8-foot length, we fasten on top of it. Notice the gap that I’m putting on the end because that way, it will fit flush with the horizontal piece of the 4-foot length that comes from the other direction. So I fastened those two together and then I do two screws in each board to keep it pre-sawed using the 1 ½ inch screw. And then I move over to the other end do the same thing and fasten that together. Now we have our first side put together lengthways. We go to the other side and put in our lengthways piece the same way making sure we have that two feet width at the end and the gap at the end for the other horizontal piece that will fit. We have a nice square feet. Two screws into each hole or in each board and do the same at the other end.
Now, we put on the end piece. To do that, we first stand up one of the sides. And it’s easier to fasten the top first so things don’t keep falling over for you. You notice it how I tilted it together to put it all in one piece together. I’ll fasten this one end first. And then I go to the other end to pull the other side up and fasten the top together. So now, we have these two connected at the top. And then I go down to the base where I have my 2x4 rib. And again, because of these 2x4 screwing into another 2x4, we have lead for a 3-inch screw now instead of 1 ½ inch. So just one screw is enough here. I’ll fasten that in on this end and then on the other end, and we have this end assembled as we go to the other end of the pen and we screw in again our 1 ½ inch in the top and our 3-inch screw into the bottom those two are put together, fastened. Two in the top and one 3-inch screw in the bottom.
Now, we are ready for our cross bracing. Again, we start out making sure that the top end of our cross bracing on this lengthways run is at the back end of the pen. If it is at the low side, we’ll have problems later assembling our nest box. So the back end is up in the air and we fasten that first, and then we come down to the bottom and fasten that end. This first cross brace is now secure. We come over to the other side and do the same thing, fasten the one brace on the top first, then we go down to the bottom, again, one screw is sufficient here in this cross bracing. Next, we go to the end and we screw in at the top and then fasten to the bottom, and we don’t need again a cross bracing at the back end because it will be solidified by the nest box and all those things that we assemble.
This concludes our assembly of the first step with the frame and the cross bracing for that frame. Let’s move on ahead now to the second step in assembling the nest box and the ladder for that nest box.
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