A beautiful day here in ATL got us pumped to build our coop! After a ton of research online, we decided on the Pets Imperial Green Ritz Chicken Coop.It’s currently unavailable on Amazon, but I will post a link if it becomes available (I think we bought the last one!). We are very pleased with the coop – it looks great and seems sturdy.
There are A LOT of different types of coops out there, tall ones, short ones, large runs, small runs, and the interesting Chicken Tractor models. I originally wanted a chicken tractor coop, where one side of the coop is on wheels so the chickens can be easily relocated around the yard, but was surprised at the increase in cost (it literally seemed that each wheel added an additional $100 to the coop cost)!
I thought perhaps building a coop from scratch may be the best route, given the sturdier and last-longer construction of a build-it-yourself, but actually pricing out the materials alone raised the coop cost to upwards of $500, and lets not forget the labor and challenge (I can see myself having to redo portions over and over as I can be kind of a perfectionist). Finally, I nervously settled on the Green Ritz, at a $250 cost. What really hurt my sensibilities was that the coop did not qualify for free shipping, even onPrime, but I swallowed my gut-wrench at spending so much to ship an item (these days we are so ship-spoiled!) and went ahead with purchase, at a total cost of $320. I actually signed up for an Amazon Prime Visa card at check out, which deducted the exact $70 I was so reticent to pay, and so we made out pretty good in the end.
We decided on this particular coop because it seemed it would be big enough, claiming to house around 4 chickens, and the description specifically stated it was sturdy and built to last. It also had 100% good reviews. All of the other coops in our price range had terrible reviews, mostly about flimsy materials that would likely not last the year. I am of the mind that if you set out to do something, do it well and make it last, the first time.
My 5-year-old son, Darral, makes a great assistant, and once I hefted the ridiculously heavy boxes to the backyard, was eager to assist in the construction and of course, keeping the work area clean.
Husband Seth even helped out (in between dog petting sesh’s)! Actually the assembly was pretty easy (comparing to an Ikea build), but the instructions could have included some additional steps to make the exact order of assembly a bit clearer. All in all, though, we only had to redo one part, so I call that a success!!
Equipment-wise we only needed a power drill and a screwdriver. Of course our power drill was on the fritz, so we screwed a lot and I even have a screw-bruise on my thumb (says proudly)!
All in all we are very pleased with our new coop. It looks great, and it seems to be sturdy enough to last a while. I do have one concern: Chicken Math! This is something I read about befo
re ordering my 4 peeps, but didn’t realize its truth until 5 peeps arrived!Now I don’t think this coop is large enough to house the 5 chickens, as the run is small. I do plan to put up some chicken fencing to make a larger run, but my main concern is that when we travel we will need a fastidious neighbor to let them out and coop them up each day/night. I am considering building them a larger run to attach to the coop, just for when we travel, but since my peeps are but a week old, this can certainly wait!
In the meantime, Darral has squatted the coop and claimed it for himself. Check out his tour-de-coop video:
Here are some more pics of our building process and enjoying some peep time:
