Ever fancy building a chicken coop from pallets?
In this 12 minute video created by Cheapskate Gardener, a chicken coop is made from partly re used pallets.
Keep reading to get a detailed review and to access a full transcript of the video…
Building objects using pallets is a very popular topic especially for those people who are looking to save money or are keen to recycle wherever possible.
So let me quickly review this video.
Watchability
Picture quality is great
Sound quality is poor
Relevance
Building chicken coops with pallets is a popular topic
Demonstrates that almost anyone can “have a go”
The coop is not complete at the end of the video and some of the instructions were rushed.
Trust
Cheapskate Gardener has created only a few chicken related videos.
Cheapskate Gardener does not reply consistently to comments.
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By watching this video, you will learn how to;
- How almost anyone can make a chicken coop out of pallets!
- take a pallet apart- or how not to!
- That using pallets can be quite time consuming.
- use 2 x 4s in order to build the basic structure.
- use a 2 x 4 to most successfully take a pallet apart.
- The exact measurements you will need to build the same coop.
Below I have included a full transcript of the video which will help you understand the video better or to find useful pieces of information, faster.
Start of Video Transcript
Speaker1: What we have here is we need to move the baby chicks, and we’re gonna build a home for them today. And we have pallets that were free from a local store, and so we asked them for them and one actually has a floor so that’s gonna be the base of the new chicken building. So, just going to fast forward and show exactly what we’re going to do.
So as you can see, we still have some pallets. It’s getting a bit darker because a few hours have passed. We didn’t have a crow bar, we didn’t have a method to take them apart. We didn’t really put much thought into that. Here’s some of the boards that we have that we’re taking apart. What we have here is the pylon or, I’m sorry, pallet on some parts that we got for free the other day, and we’re taking them off one board at a time.
Some are rotted, and some aren’t, and we’ll show you what we’re doing to take them off. [noise] [pause] So each post is going to be four feet long. What I have here is a 2×4. I’ve got six 2x4s for $23. So, I have it marked four feet. As you see, four inch trace in the line before he makes the cut, and we’re cutting them at four feet. That way, there’s no waste. And we’re using the chop saw saw here. Well, he is. [noise]
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There’s nothing worse than when you start a project and you realize you’re missing one of the most important parts of the project, such as screw nails. So I just had to run down to Home Hardware and pick up some screw nails. And I also broke my measuring tape, which sucked too. So I had to get one and they had one for $3.99, so there’s my beautiful little screw nails, and there’s my $3.99 measuring tape and of course, my receipt, which in total cost me, the nails were, they were only $4.99 for a pound, that’s not too bad. So I’m just gonna take a break and go out and finish the project.
So, what we’re dong is putting the post in there, and we’re just going to screw it in. [noise] [pause] That’s a four foot post. And now we’re gonna do the very bottom, just to keep it nice and tight. Supposedly men like nice and tight, I don’ know anything about it. That was a joke by the way. [noise] [pause]
We have another stick that’s exactly the length of the end pallet. [noise] [pause] Just gonna secure it to the bottom and then put the sides on that one as well. Let me just show that we have two of the wall post on there, and how we have it secured is we have it bolted right there and there, and that way it’ll give us something to put our side walls onto. [noise] [pause] So now we have these little side pieces cut. They were 32 inches, and we have them to fit in there, just so we have something to screw into. And it does make it a lot stronger.
As you can see, we have the frame up, which is, we cut the inside 43 and a quarter to go in between the two beams, that way it would have something to brace down on. What we’re gonna do is, the wood that we removed from the pallets yesterday, we’re gonna fill in the walls, and I’m gonna show you what that looks like. So what you’re looking at now is the side of the chicken coop, and we have it on buckets, the buckets we got for free when we got the lobster that day, and I just wanted to show you the wall of one side of the chicken coop.
And as you can see, it’s half refurbished wood from the pallets that we have. We have a stack over there, so we’re gonna take some more apart, get the other wood that we’re gonna need. We just have maybe on piece for the side of the wall, and then we can move onto the next wall. [pause]
Speaker2: This side’s gonna break up, what do you think?
Speaker1: Yeah, we’ll just flip it over and work with the other ones. That’s what you’re gonna do. [pause] It’s easier to walk on them. [pause] And we’re gonna just continue this probably another thirty times or so, and then we’ll add some boards. [?] And then we’re gonna finish building the sides.
So when you take a pallet apart, there’s lots of nails that stick up. As you can see right there, what I have done is I have the ones that I still need to clean, but just taking the nails out, I flip it over and I bang it out, and then I just pull it out with the claw part of the hammer. So you wanna make sure you cleaned it, and I have a bucket here where I’m collecting all my nails so they don’t end up in my driveway, and I’m going to continue until I have enough to finish the wall.
And this is what the wall looks like on the inside so far. I don’t know what it’ll look like, that one, as well as that one, but we just need to clean up a few more boards. We have a pile of clean boards right over there. So we’re just gonna cut them down to three feet, like we have been doing, and then we’re gonna work on the next set. Alright, draw up an inch,
Speaker2: We’re gonna start our first [?]
Speaker1: Here, you start it. [pause] [noise] So what you see here is we’ve put the back piece in here to keep the walls together, and now we’ve cut that to 32 inches. And the sides are 43 so it’s 41, [inaudible] and as you can see, we’ll just [inaudible] so that [inaudible] and we’re gonna put the side on. This will go over to the edge. [inaudible] [noise] [pause] Each wall is 3 feet high. [pause] [noise] So I’m just gonna fast forward until we get a couple more on.
So I just wanted to take a quick glance and see around. As you can see, the bucket’s trying to move on its way, so I’m just gonna take that bucket [inaudible] [pause]. We’re on the third wall here. I just wanted to show how we just have just this little bit much over here left to do on this third wall. So it almost is enclosed in a box, which is great. So this is the half-completed chicken coop.
All we need to do now is put a roof on. And I’m just gonna walk around, and you can see that it is made with the pallet wood. Some of it was hurt, some of it was not so bad. And we just cut them down to 3 feet sizes. Each pallet was [inaudible] bottom of it. Now, when we were cutting the pallets, we were having scrap wood left over that was 2 feet or so, and what we decided to do with it was we put a beam in there for we could strap that down. I’m just gonna show you the inside, just so you can see. And the floor had the pallet. So there’s my do-it-yourself chicken coop. So I’m just gonna take it to the homestead and put a roof on it. 
End of Video Transcript