We are in the process of another DIY for a chicken coop! Our first chicken coop we made was out of wood and tin. We made it pretty nice so it’s basically a full on building. We didn’t want to do that twice so we went out looking for different ideas. I stumbled across a used grain bin that was no longer grain worthy. The guy we bought it from had it all disassembled and ready to load minus the roof which was a bit of a shit show but we ended up getting it all loaded and hauled home! It cost us $500 for the bin, all the hardware and pieces came with it. Now we have been setting it up and mind you it is not as easy as they make it seem in the youtube videos! There is about a bajillion bolts to put in so be prepared! It is also not a one person job ( I tried). We aren’t putting it on a concrete slab like most people do. We leveled the dirt where we wanted it and we are just building. Once we get it put up before we put the roof on, we are going to put in some 4×4’s around the inside edges. Those will be mounted to the grain bin itself to keep it sturdy so it won’t blow away. In the future we might pour concrete but it is not very budget friendly. Once the roof gets put on after the 4×4’s we plan to lay some rubber matting down as the temporary flooring for ease of cleaning. I have been rounding up cheap windows so we can install a few of those. We have a solar light that we will be putting up inside. The outside of the grain bin will get a run built off of it also. We found some cheap dog kennel panels online. We can to use t-posts to secure them up and just some tieing wire to tie them together. Nothing fancy. We will also we putting some bird wire over the top to keep hawks out and keep the chickens in! All in all I bet we have only spent about $800 for everything. Which is much more budget friendly than buying a garden shed for a few thousand. If you are lucky though you might just stumble across a free grain bin and that would be even better!
The Broke Homestead 
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