The Garden Coop

We got our start back in 2008, when I put together a plan to show an acquaintance how to build a coop I'd designed for our family's chickens. My wife and I had been thinking about keeping chickens for a while. But only when she came home with a box of five chirping chicks did I (have no other choice but to) get serious about building something to h... ouse them in. Turns out, there was a lot to consider about keeping a small flock of chickens in the city - cleanliness, space, security, aesthetics, cost. I designed The Garden Coop to address these issues and more, innovating ways to do the roof and foundation that are gradually finding their ways into other coop designs. For me, it was also important that our coop be both easy to build and transparent. What I mean by that is I wanted there to be no mystery when you look at the coop as to what it is, how it functions, and how it would all come together. I added the design plan for The Garden Ark the next year, mainly in response to customer requests for a smaller, portable design. There are some nice A-frame designs for chicken tractor/arks out there, but I wanted something that was a direct take on the modern style of The Garden Coop and that would come together with very few angled cuts. I love building the ark, by the way, and because of its compact size I've been able to build a number of them over the years. That repetition led me to source hardware in bulk and eventually offer Quick Kits for our coop designs. Next, I completed the design plan for The Basic Coop stand-alone chicken coop. I was looking to create a simple design that could be built affordably and get the most coop out of the fewest materials possible. It also had to be easy to build. Fully functional.Read More