You'll need the following supplies:

-~4 wooden pallets, or something else to create the 'skeleton' of your structure. These are in the garbage outside large grocery and department stores pretty much anywhere. You want the oldest, ugliest ones you can find that are still more or less intact. I used pallets that were about 45"x35", but size is flexible. It'll make your project easier to have 4 pallets of the same size (the 5th is just torn apart for scrap wood).

-Chicken wire, or something else to keep your chickens in and cats out. This is available at any home improvement store.

-Something to shade your chickens from the rain. I used a piece of an old plastic tarp that I had laying around my yard.

-Something to secure it all together. I used staples, both 1.25" with a compressed air staple gun and .25" with a hand-powered gun.



And I used the following tools:

-Saw-zall (my favorite tool of decontruction:))

-Table saw (both this and saw-zall can be replaced by any decent hand saw + some extra patience)

-Hammer and crow bar (to separate the 5th pallet into usable scraps of wood)

-Utility blade (to cut the tarp; scissors would also do the trick)

-Hand-powered staple gun (used to secure the tarp, as the air-powered staple gun goes right through the plastic)

-Air compressor with staple gun and nail gun (overkill: a hammer with a coupla nail and some 1" staples would definitely work)



Of course, you can improvise widely on this. Just try to avoid buying (and polluting via the manufacture of) something if you can find a free, reused version (like the pallets).