Recycling an Old Horse Shelter into a Turkey, Duck & Chicken Coop & Run with Repurposed Materials

Previously we took apart pallets and used the boards as strapping on the NW wall. When we were doing that we also took apart enough to make a door and a few other things you'll see in the future.

This was the first time either of us has built a door, but it is 100% predator proof and has a nice seal.



First things first we installed a 2x4 on top of the horizontal 6x6 framing the bottom of the doorway.

Then we cut a small piece of some of the leftover silver tin and placed it over the two exposed wooden boards.

Now, lets build the door.

We took a sheet of 3½ inch plywood to use as the body of the door. We didn't have to cut it since it was the perfect height and width.

Next, we framed the plywood with pallet boards to add strength and structure. Smaller screws work well for this since they won't be holding much weight. Three boards ran vertically in the center to create bones for the tar paper and tin to lay on.

You can tell the dogs were helping.

Next, we dressed the pallet boards with tar paper, one sheet of Tarpaper did the trick. Then we trimmed the excess with a Utility Knife.


I personally don't recommend doing this next step if you're using this article as inspiration; adding strapping on top of the tarpaper.
It had a lot of pros, but the deal breaker was that it was in the way of the hinges opening the distance we wanted.

We flipped the door over and installed two reused hinges.


We carried the heavy door over to the doorway and placed it onto 3 staked pallet boards. This held it at the height we needed while one of us installed the hinges. The place of installation was too low to the ground to open because of the compacted snow, so we raised it and that fixed the problem.

Epiphanies came and we flipped the hinges around to allow more movement for the hinges.



The next epiphany was that the strapping was in the way of the door opening completely, so we removed it.

Now the easy part; installibg the tin. Only one cut was needed and then it was installed.

We then added some finishing details to the exterior using some leftover tin.

First we added a strip of black tin on the plywood that we installed in the wall to attach the hinges to.



Cut a small piece of black tin and put it over the entry to act as a Drip edge canopy.



And finally a reused kickplate made of the previous roofing tin.


As you might see above, we outlined the overlap on the door with a pencil.

Here's what it looked like from the inside with the door shut.




To satisfy us all, here's a view of the back of the coop.



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On the next page we will be adding a Whale latch, talking about ventilation and more!