Chicken Coop Plans to Build a Henhouse 
Using chicken
coop plans
for making your own coop is a great way to save money and get the right
size and style chicken house you need for your flock.
Building
your own chicken coop is actually not very hard.
You'll be surprised at how simple it is to make a good coop
when you have
easy
chicken coop plans to follow.
Read on to learn more about chicken
coop construction and plans.
The photo to the right shows a medium size coop with a built-in
nesting box and roosting area. The chickens can scratch around on the
ground during the day, or you can let them out of the coop when there
are no chicken
predators
lurking about.
The drawing below shows a much larger chicken
house and attachable chicken run that gives a larger flock plenty of
room to live 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.
This gives you the benefits of free
range chickens when it's convenient and the safety from
predators when it's not. 
Below, you can see what that design looks like when it is built.
There is ample room for many hens as well as a human-size door for
access to the coop. It has a great set of nesting boxes, with
exterior access to collect eggs quickly and easily without disturbing
your birds.
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 this is too big to be included in the category of portable
chicken coops, it would be possible to make the run part movable and
change up your flock's free range area that way -- by moving the
exterior pen daily and rigging a wire mesh enclosure to go over the
path to their outdoor area.
If you have a tiny flock or just intend to keep 2-3 chickens, small
chicken coops
provide the perfection option. There are many lightweight, portable
designs for pint-sized flocks, and this is certainly a very economical
way to go when it comes to housing your birds.
While some basic woodworking experience and prior power tool use is
helpful, most chicken house plans are designed so that if you can read
them, you will be able to 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 chicken
coops.
A small investment in good plans, your time, and appropriate building
materials will yield a
strong, adequate coop that will last years -- even decades -- providing
affordable housing and protection to your chicken flock.
If you're interested in any of the coop plans for the houses pictured
here, see Building
a Chicken Coop to purchase them.
Want to read more about this topic? Check out our pages on:
Amish
Chicken Coops: These Dutch quality coops are well-made and
built to last. Find out where to buy and what design elements are
superior.
Portable
Chicken Coops: Chicken pens that can be moved about
your
yard make sense for small yards or where free ranging is not possible.
Backyard
Chicken Coops:
What elements go into backyard chicken coops,. and
what are
the advantages to eggs from your own hens versus those at the
supermarket?
Chicken
Coop Building Plans: For the do-it-yourself and
frugal approach,
learn about building a coop from easy-to-follow plans.
Chicken
Coop Ideas:
There are many ideas for fun and crazy chicken coops. Take a
look
at some fun pictures and get your creative brain working.
Go back home to Egg
Laying Chickens,
or check out other
chicken-related resources online:
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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Hens
for Sale
If you're eager to begin a backyard chicken flock, you might not want to wait for day-old chicks to grow into pullets and finally lay eggs. To that end, if you can find some healthy hens for sale locally, you may be able to have fresh eggs almost immediately. It's best to buy pullets that are just about to start laying, rather than older hens who have already laid eggs and may be upset by a change in environment and stop laying for a time after the move.
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