My name is Galen Bontrager. I’m the owner and operator and of Galen Bontrager Farm based at Wellman, Iowa. And we’ll be showing you today how to assemble a chicken coop. We’ll be doing that in several different steps.
The first step will be to assemble the basic frame and the cross bracing on that frame. Second, we will assemble the nest box and the ladder that will go into the nest box. Third, we will assemble the top cover on the back end of the pan. Next step, we will wrap the chicken wire around the pen and also a metal frame in the back end. Next, we will assemble the front cover frame of the pen and then fasten a chicken wire to that front frame as well.
Some of the tools that we will be working with will have different screws and hinges with various sizes and I’ll point those out to you as we get to them. We also have different sizes of chicken wire, 2-foot wide pieces and about 20-foot long and then a six-foot wide piece cut at about 52 inches. The lumber we will be working with is going to be pressure treated 1x6’s and pressure treated 2x4’x. These will be in various sizes ripped in half or ripped in thirds in some places. The bottom boards are ripped in half, one is towards the base for a little more sturdiness along the ground. And then the 2x4’s will be ripped in half for some of the bases at the front and back as well as for our cornered pieces.
The tools we’ll be using include a battery-powered drill, 14.4 gigawatt drill with a philips head screwdriver. And I also have a quarter inch, a nut driving bit that we’re going to use as well for the different kinds of screws that we’re using. And I also have a pencil and measuring tape. I recommend a 10-12 foot length for the project that we’re dealing. Some of the basic safety issues we’re dealing with when we assemble this pen, just remembering working with the ends of the chicken wire, those ends are kind of sharp. The wood would be ripped so there might be some rough edges on it. There are sharper tips on the screws. So we just handle these with caution and I’m sure you’ll do just fine.
As I mentioned, Gelan Bontrager Farm based out Wellman, Iowa. I call myself “Your beyond organic farm food connection”. My feature products are salad bar beef, salad bar lamb, pastured broilers, pastured turkey and pastured eggs. I currently produce about 130 eggs a week. I have 200 laying hens. And what you will see here today is a pen sized about four feet wide by eight feet long by two feet high. This is a little bit smaller than some of the pens that I used with my larger production. But the basic frame designs and everything are the same. The concepts are the same. So let’s get started with assembling our chicken coop.
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