Laughing Chickens

It’s been a few years since I bought my hen house and thought I’d give this review an update.
After I left the Marin shop with my purchase I hopped on Unilocal and gave it a 5-​star review. Boy was that stupid. Turns out I didn’t have all the items needed to complete my coop and had to contact the company several times to get the last of the roof pieces and a door that was missing.
I eventually got the items I needed but it took several weeks and many very unpleasant conversations with the representative of this company to get treated fairly. Eventually I was saved by the intervention of another employee who promptly shipped me what I needed. The coop that should have taken a few hours to assemble was finally completed after 8 hours of intense construction and several weeks of negotiation.
Fast-​forward two winters and I have to tell folks I am already shopping around for a new, more weather-​proof coop before the end of Summer. Every time it rains, it gets soaked completely though and I have to rescue my hens with a tarp covering their whole building — and this is in a drought! I am afraid to imagine what a normal Northern California winter would do to that thing.

Found these guys on CL and loved the idea of a chicken coop made with reclaimed materials. All the pictures looked great, and so we arranged to purchase one and have it picked up by my brother so that we wouldn’t have to pay shipping.
I guess it is supposed to be understood that when something is built out of reclaimed wood, it’s not going to be perfect. But let’s just say it was a lot further from perfect, more than we expected. There were already splits in the wood, not everything lined up quite right, there were gaps and imperfections…
So, it is 90% complete now, and we are decently happy with it, but would just caution anyone looking into these to know that when they say reclaimed, we are talking RUSTIC. My husband actually blew through a whole roll of hardware mesh just trying to cover the various gaps and holes enough that a rodent can’t climb in and wreak havoc. For $ 400+ you can have one of these, or something of comparable size of all-​new materials. You just have to decide if it’s more important to you that your coop be environmentally friendly and keeping materials out of the landfill, or that it have joints that all fit tightly and properly and no splits in the boards right out of the box.
For what it’s worth, they bought me a bag of organic chicken feed when I expressed my disappointment, which was greatly appreciated.

A huge thanks to Cael and Laughing Chickens for helping us to create the perfect chicken yard for our backyard flock. I bought my first coop from Laughing Chickens about a year ago because they were simply the most beautiful coops around. It’s only through using them a year that I have learned how well constructed and designed they truly are — predator proof, easy to clean, great ventilation, fabulous run and just a wonderful home that my chickens love.
Ran into a problem with an egg eater recently and Laughing Chickens went above and beyond to do some custom work for me to create a roll away nest box for the chickens, so they can no longer reach the eggs to eat them. If anyone else is facing an egg eating problem, look no further — Laughing Chickens can help you to design a solution that will work!
If you’re looking for the best, plus a great group of people to work with, then call Laughing Chickens.
The category for this should really be chicken coop or backyard chickens or chicken care.