My flat packed hen house, assembled in the gathering gloom of a winter's afternoon, went together fairly easily apart from a couple of entirely necessary modifications I had to make. If you've ever assembled an IKEA bookcase, then putting together a chicken coop is easy peasy. The modifications were a bit more tricky.
Once I'd put the rest of it together I couldn't get the nesting box roof to sit on properly and essentially the roof had not been cut to the right size. So although it was supposed to slot into the main body of the hen house and then be secured by a catch, it wasn't long enough to do both. I had to screw a short piece of wood into the house just above where the nesting box roof came to rest in order to act as a catch. This won't do the job long term and I sense a trip to B&Q coming on to buy something that will do the job more permanently.
The other alteration I've had to make today, the necessity of which was not immediately obvious when I first assembled the hen house as I put the birds to bed before assembling and then attaching the run. This was moving the bolt that secures the flap to the hen house so that it can be reached by the person opening and closing the hen house each day without them having to kneel down on the ground to do so. It seems a pretty basic thing, and maybe it's because I put the door of the run on the opposite side. But I want the door of the run to be near the back door of my house so that I don't have to walk around the run in the darkness at he beginning and end of each day. Also, the run is oriented towards the part of the garden that gets any sunshine in winter. And I was following the instruction leaflet for once!
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