Easy Chicken Coop Construction Plans for Small Flocks 
Simple chicken
coop construction plans
for making your own chicken house are the best way to save
money,
create an ideal environment for your flock and build
something
you'll be happy to have in your backyard.
Building
your own chicken coop is actually not very hard.
Making a hen house requires basic materials, skills and tools. It’s
certainly something you can do yourself if you have prior building or
woodworking experience.
Before beginning the construction of your flock’s new home, calculate
how many square feet your enclosure should have. Some coops have both a
house and a pen, allowing the chickens to move freely from the enclosed
area to an outdoor section, typically made of chicken wire on a wooden
frame. The actual walled and roofed section of the chicken coop needs
to allow about three square feet per bird, when they also have access
to the outdoors. If the henhouse is their only environment and they
will not have free range access, the coop should have at least five
square feet per fowl.
Once
you’ve determined the general size of the coop you intend to make,
select and buy chicken
coop plans to guide you in the building process.
The best ones I’ve found are a set that includes detailed, illustrated
instructions for building a small portable, a midsize and a large coop.
Best of all, you can receive the plans instantly after paying for them
online, so you’ll be ready to go in minutes. The plans include a
materials list for you to reference as you assemble necessary
items.
For
the largest coop, you may need to have the materials delivered to your
home if you don’t have a vehicle large enough to transport. Keep this
in mind as you order and purchase your building supplies. Once your
plans are printed and your materials are on location, the fun part --
construction -- begins.
As with any other building
project, precise measurements from the start will produce a
high-quality end result. Be sure to read through the plans in their
entirety before you begin cutting and nailing the pieces together –
have a clear picture of the project and each of its steps before
starting.
The drawing at the top of this page on the
right shows the medium size coop
with a built-in
nesting box and roosting area. It's great for a flock of about six.
With this design, your chickens have access to a protected outdoor
environment, and can also be allowed too free range if your yard area
is free of chicken
predators.
The sketch below shows a much larger chicken
house and attached chicken run that are ideal for a large
backyard flock, affording them adequate area to live, lay
eggs, and run around as they like. You can let them out of the
run daily, 
simply
by opening the door, to give them
access to fresh grass as desired.
This gives you the benefits of free
range chickens when it's convenient and the safety from
predators when it's not.
Here is what that design looks like once it is fully constructed (see
below).
There is tons of room for a nice size flock as well as a tall
door for
your easy access to the coop. It has a great set of roosting
bars and nesting boxes, with
exterior access to collect eggs quickly and easily.
This
is truly a dream chicken house for raising
backyard chickens. There is plenty of space so that
when they are shut inside, they will be fine, and you can let them out
during the day as your situation allows. An attached chicken run, like
the one in the schematics above, would be ideal, with or without some
yard time for free ranging/ foraging during the day when you are home.
While previous small construction projects experience and
prior
power tool use is ideal, these chicken house plans are created such
that if you can read
them, you can build them. Enlist the help of a more experienced friend
or hire a handyman to help with the framing if you have trouble doing
it yourself -- you'll still save a large sum over purchasing the
already-constructed coops.
If you're interested in any of the coop plans for the houses pictured
here, see Building
a Chicken Coop to purchase them.
Go back to Chicken
Coop Plans or home to Egg
Laying Chickens,
or check out other
chicken-related resources:
Best Coop Plans:
How to Build a Chicken Coop - detailed plans and construction guide for making backyard coops.
These chicken coop plans and building guide are the best I've found, and purchased them myself to build our first coops. There are five different chicken coops included, beginning with the most basic double-story ark and culminating with the largest design, the Chicken Barn with attached screened-in chicken yard. I want to use their plans again for their largest chicken coop, the chicken barn, when we are ready to upsize our chicken flock's habitat. The coop pictured here is a medium-sized all-in-one design.
Recommended Chicken Books:
- Homemade Living - Keeping Chickens: All You Need to Know to Care for a Happy, Healthy Flock by Ashley English
- Storey's Guide - Raising Chickens by Gail Damerow
- Barnyard in Your Backyard - A Beginner's Guide to Raising Chickens, Ducks, Geese, Rabbits, Goats, Sheep, and Cattle
Favorite Chicken Quotes
“ A chicken you eat only once — eggs a hundred times." ~ Tajikistani Proverb
“ You cannot cook one half of the chicken and leave the other to lay eggs." ~ Sanskrit Proverb
“ You don’t have to kill the chicken to get eggs." ~ French Proverb
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Don't Miss
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Chicken
Coop Ideas
A page with pictures of unique chicken coop ideas as well as tips on building them and recommended plans to follow for more mainstream looking henhouses. Your chicken coop and pen can be an attractive, fun work of art as well as a practical residence for your birds.
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Small
Chicken Breeds
Caring for small chicken breeds is virtually the same as tending to standard size hens and roosters. They need less food than their larger cousins, but also enjoy foraging and free ranging on grass. Protection from predators is essential, of course, and a secure chicken coop goes a long way to providing them the necessary protection.
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