How to Build a Chicken Coop

Chicken Coop – Basic Considerations

Many people are attracted to keeping chickens as both family ‘pets’ but also, more significantly, for the supply of fresh delicious eggs that they produce. In order that your chickens remain healthy and continue to provide your daily eggs there are a few basic considerations you should think about before you start building your chicken coop.

1. Identify the best location on your land – The two main considerations here are first, separation from your main home (chickens can get smelly, its best to keep them away and downwind of you home and any garden areas where you will want to entertain people), and secondly the welfare of your chickens (choose a sheltered areas of sufficient size that is shaded from direct sunlight and shielded from strong winds)
2. The number of chickens you want to keep – Obviously the more chickens you want to keep the bigger the Coop you will need.
3. Do you want children and other visitors to get access to your chickens – If part of your reason for getting chickens is to be able to interact with them then you will need to consider in more detail how you will allow access easily and safely for those who are less proficient at handling chickens.
4. Does the area where you live have any regulations or local laws that you will need to comply with? This is something you will need to check for you local area, but for example if your chicken coop is over 50sqm then you might well need planning permission if you live in the UK, and according to Wikipedia, Oakland, California has a rule that bans the keeping of hens within 20 feet of dwellings, schools or churches.

Chicken Coop Designs Elements

When designing your chicken coop there are a number of features that you need to consider using. As a basic minimum you need to provide a place for your birds to;

• Roost – In the wild most breeds of chicken will sleep by climbing up into the branches of trees, you will need to replicate this situation by have rooting poles in the main housing area to give your chickens somewhere to climb up onto when they want to go to sleep.
• Lay – You don’t need me to tell you  that chicken lay eggs, that is one of the main reasons people keep them. What you might need to think about a bit more if providing your hens with a dark quiet area where they can go to lay. This is an area that you will fill with straw, and it needs to be accessed easily from the outside of you coop so that you can retrieve your daily eggs without disturbing the whole coop.
• Scratch and Peck – Chickens need space to move about and exercise. In particular they like to scratch and peck at grass or soil.
• Be protected from the wind and rain – There is some debate about how wind tight coops need to be. On the one side is the ‘Fresh Air School’ who believe that chickens thrive in open coops  and are made ill by living in stuffy airless houses. On the other side is the ‘closed house’  approach that believe that like other animal chickens should not be exposed to extreme windy and wet conditions. It seems to us that a secure main house (but with an element of meshing to provide ventilation) together with easy and ready access to an external mesh or open run will provide both environments for you chickens.
• Security – This is security from foxes and other critters. If this is likely to be a problem in the area where you live then make sure that the runs you build for your chickens are meshed in with mesh of sufficient strength to keep out the critters you are dealing with.

What this means in reality is a secure central housing area

 

photo credit: furtwangl

 

 

containing roosting poles,

photo credit: Living Off Grid

 

Snug, easily accessible laying boxes and

 

photo credit: thievingjoker

 

 

A secure external run

photo credit: RJL20

 

What  you will need to build your own Chicken Coop

In some instances you will be converting an existing shed or old outbuilding to create your chicken coop. If this is the case then you really need to approach the project ‘freestyle’. The shed will provide the basic house within which you should erect roosting poles and some laying boxes. The laying boxes should be against a wall of the shed through which a hole can be cut so that eggs can be retrieved from outside. A secure (preferably lockable) flap door should then be fitted over the retrieval hole. Finally you will need to have a (hen sized) door out of your shed into an external run. This can be open, but if foxes and other predators are an issue then I recommend that the run should have sides and a roof of wire mesh. the floor should be open to the ground so that the hens can peck and scratch. If you have the ability to move the location of the external run that is useful. This will allow areas of lawn to recover from the pecking and scratching!

If you don’t have a shed to convert, then your best starting point will be to purchase a set of chicken coop plans that will set out full details of the materials you will need as well as a step by step guide to preparing and erecting your coop. Unless you are planning a particularly fancy coop, basic tools and materials (saw, hammer, drill, screwdriver, nails, screws, lumber, wire mesh, roof shingles or felt, paint or creosote).

Prefabricated Alternatives

photo credit: JenCarole

As more and more people keep hens in urban areas, so we have seen a number chicken coops come onto the market that are ideally suited for the smaller urban garden. The emphasis of these urban coops is easy of assembly and simple maneuverability, thereby allowing the coop to be moved around the garden to allow grassed areas to recover.

The photo to the left shows an example of the ‘Eglu’ brand or urban chicken coops.