This post is from several years ago but it still does two things. First, it looks at a simple and inexpensive way to build a chicken coop. Second, it gets us thinking about how we can go about prepping in a sustainable way. One of the things that a lot of us fall into is simply stockpiling food, water, and gear but we don’t really have a means to continue to provide for our families if there’s an event that lasts longer than our stored supplies.

I was one of these people until recently but thankfully that’s starting to change.

What are you doing to prep in a way that is sustainable in the long term? Let us know in the comments section below.

Maybe it’s that the fourth of July is right around the corner, or maybe it’s because we’ve now formed a bit of a tradition with barn red and white, but, either way, our new coop is definitely patriotic. We built an A-frame coop, and so far, we are loving it. The underneath of it forms a large run for the hens (8’x6′), and there’s enough room for four hens in the loft. We modified some plans from Ana-White.com (you can find them here). 

Her plans are really nice, and fairly budget friendly, though we spent a little extra using hardware cloth instead of chicken wire and some slightly thicker plywood than her plans plus the paint on the outside of the coop.

We modified the coop by adding the front door and putting siding the front of the coop using 1″x4″s (mainly because we didn’t want to bother with cutting the hardware cloth which is a bit of a pain). It had the added benefit of turning out very rustic and sturdy. We also only have two doors on the top instead of four, as her plans have. We used untreated cedar fence boards as the loft floor as these are cheap and hold up well. We also capped the 2″x4″ trusses with 2″x2″ boards, so that the hardware cloth was sandwiched between the 2″x4″s and 2″x2″s – just a little extra security.

Source: Red, white, and blue coop

Be sure to check out our other prepping articles.