How I Started
Back in August I started cleaning up my garden to get ready for the fall planting dates. I found tons of scrap 2 x 4s laying around, left over from different raised bed projects. So constructed a chicken coop I did.
Design
Instead of choosing the number of chickens I wanted by considering how many eggs I eat, I decided to build the biggest cage possible to hold the maximum amount of chickens. Confined by the fix resource of the wood I found around my house I was able to construct a coop 3ft wide x 8ft deep x 3ft high. I read that humanly chickens should be given 6 to 8 sq feet but I knew commercially chickens are given less then a square foot. So at least 4 chickens. Then I said I would let them out to rome around. Now 6 chickens. I put wheels on the cage to move around and prevent manure build up. Now 8 chickens. Rounded to 10 for good measure.
I covered the top with plywood, and used stucco wire. Stucco wire is much cheaper then buying wire marketed as 'chicken wire', however you must buy more.
