Greetings from The Reclaimed Chick Inn, our handmade chicken coop!
I purchased this coop in May of 2021 from a minimal security prison. The prisoners built it out of old shipping containers. We hauled it home in a flatbed trailer.
Along the way, we stopped at a roadside thrift store and found three safari-print chicken wall pictures that I hung inside the coop. I later purchased a couple of zebra and leopard print shirts at Goodwill, cut them up, and made them into curtains for the nesting boxes.
Gone with the Wind
In July of 2022, a terrible windstorm came through and rolled The Chick Inn completely over, demolishing it and devastating myself and the chickens. No lives, however, were lost in the wreckage!
My father-in-law spent more than 10 days in 100-degree weather piecing the coop back together and adding more/heavier reclaimed wood to it. It’s even better than before, and the chickens were happy to be back home!
Our reclaimed coop currently houses 15 hens and nine guineas. On the other side is a 4-by-8-foot room that holds the feed and can also fit an oval-shaped tank for a brooder. My coop has a story to tell, and the eggs are tastier from The Chick Inn.
— Rachael DeLand, Wray, Colorado
This article originally appeared in the July/August 2023 issue of Chickens magazine as a “Cool Coop” feature. Have a cool coop you’d like to share? Email us a short write-up (~250 to 500 words) about your chicken coop along with a few images to chickens@chickensmagazine.com with the subject line One Cool Coop, and include your name and mailing address. Check out Chickens magazine for current prizes and contest rules.
