Building a Chicken Coop
One big hurdle to overcome when beginning your journey as a chicken lady (or man) is figuring out the specs of a chicken coop. You can purchase one that’s already made and has the specs outlined for you, or you can make your own. Sure, purchasing a premade one is easier. That’s probably the biggest convenience. For those of you who are looking to save a few hundred bucks (yes, store-bought ones can certainly be more expensive), wanting to get hands-on homestead experience, or are just looking to get more information on what to look for in a coop, I’ll break down the chicken coop piece-by-piece.
Chickens are not pets - not like the indoor cat that has everything she needs at her fingertips without getting wet or muddy (how spoiled my cat is). Chickens belong outdoors; they need to forage and chase and scrounge, they need to enjoy the sun and the rain and the chilly air. Our goal is to encourage the chickens to spend as much time outside...the only time we’d like them to spend in their coop is when laying an egg or roosting for the night. Because of this, we’ve developed plans for the most space efficient coop, and we think it’s definitely worth sharing. It’s scaleable, which is something we definitely want to be able to utilize when we expand our homestead.
When we started looking up how to make a chicken coop, we had lots of questions.
How many chickens can fit on a roost? How many nest boxes do you need for each chicken? Can the chickens jump into a coop or do they need a ramp? Will they know where to lay their eggs?
Be sure to incorporate these following details into your own plans or look for this in a coop that’s already built.
Roost
1”x2” or 2”x2” pieces of wood work great for roosts.
Adult chickens require about 8 inches of roost space to sleep on. When you’ve got a group of close-knit chickens, they will squeeze next to each other for comfort, warmth and safety. When you’ve got a group of new chickens who are still a bit territorial, you want them to be able to have their own personal space. At one point we had 8 chickens comfortably roosting on a single 6-foot long roost (which was 9” per bird).
Roosts follow the 12-inch rule: 12” spacing vertically, horizontally, and to the roof. Let me explain…
When roosts are aligned perpendicularly, make sure there’s 12” space between them. When you have two roosts at different heights, make sure there’s 12” vertically and horizontally (see pic below). When roosts are close the ceiling, make sure there’s 12” space from the ceiling. Chickens can flock to roosts that are plenty high, but they do need the space to spread their wings. Some roosts we have are 18 inches from the floor and they don’t seem to struggle.
Nest Boxes
Chickens like dark, comfy spaces to lay their eggs - a 12”x12”x12” space is just the right size. Just like we savor the taste of yolky eggs, so too do chickens. Be sure to have a lip, about 2”-4” tall, to keep wandering eyes from catching a tasty treat.
Use pine straw, straw, or grass at the base of the nest to serve as a comfy space for the chicken as well as protect the egg when it plops down. The 2”-4” lip will also help keep the nest material in its place.
Floor
Chickens poop early morning, all day, and late at night. What if i told you that you never had to clean up chicken poop?! Use chicken wire for your coop floor, and you never will. I can’t imagine having to clean the chicken coop every week...I’ve already got one cat litter box that I struggle to keep up with! With the wire floor, chickens will poop through the wire and deposit their nutrient rich compost directly on your grass where it belongs. One important factor in this convenience is having a mobile coop that can be moved around your yard in order to spread the compost evenly. Otherwise you end up at square one, having a concentrated pile of chicken poop that provides that dreaded ammonia smell.
Door
An entrance of 12”x”10” suffices. An easy and cheap solution for creating a door-and-ramp-in-one is to take a piece of plywood and apply a hinge to the bottom of the door and latch to the top. When closed, it closes tightly without risk of predators entering unwelcome. When open, it creates the ramp the chickens use to exit and enter the coop.
Walls
Plywood that’s painted to withstand weather has worked well for us. Some warping is present, but for how cheap plywood is, it’s definitely worth it.