This is the first in a series of posts about building a Catawba Converti Coop. If you follow along you can see some pictures of the construction process.
The Catawba Coop is a very attractive chicken ark. I have seen the plans before as well as pictures of Catawba Coops that other people have built.
When we decided to raise some baby chicks this year, I knew I would need to build a brooder coop. That gave me all the excuse I needed to buy the plans.
Catawba Coop Plans
The plans come in the form of a downloadable pdf. They include more than just the instructions for building the coop. There is background about the creator of the plans and his history of raising chickens in an urban environment.
I am pleased with the quality of the plans. There are two key features that make these plans stand out.
The first is the materials list (there is also a cut list). I printed the material list out and made one trip to the store and bought all the material I needed for the coop. I had the fasteners in stock, so all I had to buy was the lumber and some other hardware. The total bill came to $135 because there was a project days sale going on when I was shopping at my local Menards.
The second key feature is the 3D renderings. The plans are presented in a step by step manner. I printed out the plans and have been following the steps in order as I build the ark. Along the way there are plenty of 3D illustrations to show what the coop should look like as the steps are completed.
These kind of projects always take longer than I first estimate. The first day I worked on the Catawba Coop, all I did was review the plans, buy the material, bring it home and stack it in the barn. You remember that sale I mentioned? What that meant is that the boards had been picked through. I spent a lot of time hand selecting boards that were not warped or cracked.
Summary
The Catawba Converti Coop is an attractive ark design. By using the material list, everything needed to build the coop can be purchased with one trip to the store for about $135 and it will all fit in the back of a pick up truck.
Related Pages
- Read part two of Catawba Coop construction.
- Read part three of Catawba Coop construction.
- Click here to go to the Catawba Coop website.
If you have any questions about the Catawba Coop, let me know in the comments section below.
If you’re interested, I created a stop motion video of the construction of a Catawba Coop. It doesn’t show any of the cuts, just the assembly: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcMnteTmEP4&feature=g-upl
Thanks for the video, it really helped when I built mine recently!
Good luck with your chickens.