How to build a DIY chicken coop

by Poultry farmer – Miriam Rolling| Last Updated– 09 March 2021

How to build this mobile chicken coop and we decided to make a mobile chicken coop so that our girls can get fresh face every day without being out in the yard with our dog.

You’re going to start by framing up Coop on the bottom here. Easy. Two by fours. And we did four feet by 10 feet.

Coming up, the sides we have to try to use and those are four feet tall after you framed this portion. And you’re going to want to frame the part of a group that is indoors and start by putting on the bottom. And then a piece of plywood is going to go on top of that and your frame up for the rest of the indoor portions of the cube. Next, we framed the roof. You actually want to frame the doors of the cube first?

That would be a little easier, but we frame the roof and then the doors network. OK, next, we firmed up the lane box and got that all situated with a piece of plywood on bottom top.

Next views to 11 plywood to make the sides and the doors everything the match from the exterior and finished up framing up the run. I think they made the run pieces 22 inches apart so that the chicken wire will fit perfectly between them and put us a little bit trim on there to make it look nice.
Now we’re feel we’re creating the frame for the sliding door. Just put some little slits in some pieces of two by two and then run the door between them so that it slides a little handle on it and the ladder of the chicken to get up to the cube door and you want your runs between six and 12 inches apart.

Next, we’re going to be adding the wheels. We’ve got these bills from tractor supply.

We have these wheels because you need a bolt and washers do that. Next, we applied a coat of exterior primer. We want to make sure everything has a nice feel nice. Coop’s going to last a really long time.

So we put this primer on everywhere, even up underneath the scoop to make sure it’s well sealed. And you see here we put some plywood on and we end up using metal roofing. We originally thought we’re going to be using shingles.

That’s why we had that plywood on the roof. So you could leave that off. It’s not required. After we finish up the primer, we realize we forgot to a little door so that a person came into the cubes, were streaming that up and put news on here.

Next, we are using a spray gun to spray paint the final color of the cube we picked this color to. It’s kind of similar to the color of the clay in our backyard.

This program was really nice and helped us get all the corners quickly and easily and gave everything a nice, good coat. And we’re able to do two coats in one day. How quickly it dries. It gives a nice, thin coat to everything. You end up looking so good afterwards. Overall, this project took us about one. I say one week to complete. But I was working, you know, working on it after work.

So probably only about twenty hours, I would say. I brought those two coats driving back into the garage so we could work on putting on Chickamaw in the roofing to do this, we use a pneumatic stapler and some work papers in order to get that chicken wire attached more tightly. We’re just putting a little strip down here at the bottom from the gap that the wheels leave from holding the cook up.

So I think you get in underneath. You want to be sure you’re very proud of your proof. And we started with putting wire underneath the indoor part of the cube to make sure we had the most access as possible to that area.

And the trick here is you want to see one side and then pull it really tight the other way and then staple that side. That gives a nice flat even. Look, when you’re done, we stapled everything on the inside so that you couldn’t see any of the staples from the outside and give them a really nice look.

So we just did that all the way around in between our framing pieces. And we did put those two inches apart so that our chicken wire would fit perfectly between them.

And then lastly, I just put in some finishing touches like the swinging the water and heater, and we put on a little latch here at the very end, and that was it.

Make a door for easy access so I can get in and change the food and water has a little latch to keep it secure, and then inside you’ll notice a few things.

We have a feeder and a waterer. I decided to go with these two and I will I bought them both on Amazon, so I’ll leave them down in the description box below. But I love you too, because they keep the food and water clean so you can load up a lot in here and it will stay good for a long time after change. Every day will be really useful for us in case you ever go. We can trucks or anything like that.

The chickens also have a little swing in here that they can enjoy and play around on. They are birds. They do enjoy that kind of thing. And there is one more little thing. I’m not sure if you can see it right here underneath the coop, just a rope that they can play on and hang out so they can really enjoy their time here in the coop.

And the last thing that’s inside is a little ladder up to the door, which has a feature I will show you now. So we have these little ropes that hang on the outside of the door so that you go inside to walk them out every day.

You can just simply use these ropes little blocks from going all the way through and use these roads to open and close the door from the outside.

So it makes a little bit easier to access all that next feature on the back of the car. Now, you wanted this door nice and big because that will allow you to clean out the coop. Much easier to reach in here and get a broom and clean everything out.

Also, notice we didn’t include any lip on this box so that we can really easily just sweep everything out and sweep all the waste and paint shootings into a wheelbarrow or something so that we can put it in our compass.

And then there is a little rooster up on the top. You want to give them somewhere to sleep at night. They do sleep walking on to something, standing up. And a lot of people have told me that you only need one room wherever the top chicken goes, as we’re all going to want to sleep with asleep right next to each other on that piece.

So this is a really good future to include an ice cream store so that it’s easy to clean. Of course, you want to have latches on everything to make sure that no predators can get inside your.

We only have one laying box. Chickens will all lay in the same box as the chicken is at the top of the pecking order. So and you only need one box for five chickens. We’re only planning on having four. So this one laying box will be plenty for them for.

And why don’t you spend a lot of troops that the box opens from the roof? This can actually kind of freak the chickens out if they’re in there laying and you open it up. They have a lot of predators that come from the sky. It’s actually nicer for them if you have the opening to from the side.

So light never gets in there and it stays nice and dark and safe. And they really like this.

You want to make sure your box is somewhere dark, quiet so that the girls were all.

10 reasons for building a chicken coop yourself

  1. You can save yourself a solid-steady amount of money if you build a chicken coop house yourself. Eggs can be very expensive, especially for larger sized families. Think about how often you use eggs. Scrambled eggs? Fried eggs? French toast? German pancake? Cake? Cookies? The list goes on and on. Eggs are used in almost every recipe.
  2. Convenience. I can’t begin to tell you how many trips I’ve made to the grocery store solely for the purpose of purchasing eggs. No more, now that I have a chicken coop of my own. All I have to do is store the eggs from the chicken coop in my fridge, and I’m set.
  3. Building something with your own hands and having it last a long time is a thing of pride. When you gaze upon your backyard, you will smile with admiration as you see the chickens trotting around happily in their well-built chicken coop house.
  4. Chickens are well-mannered creatures. Your kids and your kid’s friends will love to play with them.
  5. Want to go green? Recycle your old food scraps and feed them to your chickens. They’ll eat them, and in return, you’ll get free eggs.
  6. Need fertilizer? Chicken waste is a well known excellent fertilizer for many different plants and shrubs. The best thing of all? It’s free.
  7. This one only applies to people that already have chickens, but no chicken coop house. Your chickens aren’t safe! Protect them from both nature’s fury and from wild animals. Plus, they’ll be much happier in their own house.
  8. Animal activists will also enjoy these coops. Some chicken factories caged chickens in cages that are much to small for them. Most chickens can’t even spread their wings out and they sit there all day! That’s no life for a living animal. Chicken coop houses are much more humane for these animals.
  9. Eggs aren’t all the same. I bet you’ve never had the pleasure of tasting an egg that was in the chicken all of an hour ago. They are much more delicious than regular eggs.
  10. If you’ve already realized the benefits of chicken coops and were thinking of purchasing one, think again. Pre-built chicken coops are overpriced when you compare them to the amount you spend when you do it yourself. Besides, most pre-built coops take just as much work as from scratch chicken coops.

Location perhaps is the most important issue determining success or failure when growing chicken. Selecting the correct place in your backyard can boost the chances of raising chicken profitably. If you pick out the wrong place it may in the long run lead to unhealthy and uneffective chicken. This is why it’s important to build your chicken coop in the best possible position.

You will typically be rewarded with happier and healthier chickens if you take some time to think before constructing your coop . In this commentary we will talk about the most critical items that should be taken into consideration when determining the ideal location. There are certainly additional items, but air flow, water accessibility and water drainage, are the most important.

Poor drainage can cause many problems. At whatever time the ground becomes wet the water will drain and disappear into the ground or puddle up and turn the ground to mud. Proper water drainage keeps the soil drier and less mud-covered. Muddles of water combined with chicken dung are a quick method of producing disease. The chicken will rapidly track that mixture everywhere, including into the poultry housing where the feeders, waterers, and nest boxes are located. The food and water can get polluted and the eggs will become soiled. Choosing a site with superior water drainage will remove most pollution problems.

The direction of the wind blows is another important issue that needs to be considered when determining the ideal position for your coop. Your coop is better built in a position that wind would not blow the odors from the coop to your house or your neighbors. Having dissatisfied neighbors is not what you want. And nice air flow will get rid of potentially injurious and unpleasant odors in the chicken housing area.

Position your coop in a place where expansion is possible. You may want to keep 5 to 7 chickens now but you may want to keep more in the future.If there is no room for expansion, you will have to build a different coop in another position.This would cost you more time and money.

Your location should be near water and electricity supply. Without a close water supply you may possibly end up toting heavy water fountains back and forth every day merely to make available sanitary water for your chickens. Automatic watering is possible with a nearby water faucet which will also eliminate much manual labor. As a bonus, water will certainly make any essential cleaning activities less trouble.

Artificial lighting is required if you would like your hens to supply you with eggs the whole year. Pullets must be provided a minimum quantity of light per day to lay eggs dependably. Make sure there is electricity supply in the region of your coop.

In freezing climates where the winters are harsh, poultry coops should be facing south. This will provide the utmost sunlight, keeping the chickens warmer. The additional rays from the sun will also keep the housing drier and cleaner. Take a little time to think about these things previous to deciding on a permanent spot and you will considerably boost the possibility of success.

In cold winter your coop should face south.This will provide maximum sunlight to keep the chicken warm.The sunlight will also keep the coop dry and clean.Think about all these things before building a chicken coop will increase the success rate of raising chicken.

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4 Chicken Coop Ideas You Should Not Miss

You probably arrived here, because you decided to build a chicken coop yourself and now you are looking for great chicken coop ideas to build a great hen house. If you build a chicken coop yourself, there are various things you have to consider. Nevertheless, you should keep in mind that the more ideas you have the more difficult it might get to build the coop. By the way, it is a great idea to get a chicken coop blueprint. These guides usually come with tons of ideas that can be realized easily. You should not miss having a look at my Chicken Coop Guides Review.

Below you can find some ideas you might to take into consideration:

Chicken Coop Idea 1: Build A Movable Chicken Coop

Build A Movable Chicken Coop

The first idea is to build a movable chicken coop. Why do I think that this is a great idea? Simple, you can move the coop around in your yard. You might wonder why you want to do this? One factor is the sun. The direction of the sunlight changes according to the season and trees might block the sunlight in the summer. However, chicken love sun and need sunshine. And I am sure you want to keep your chickens happy, don’t you? By building a movable chicken coop, you can move the coop to the areas which allow maximum sunlight. During cold winter months it is also a great thing to have a movable chicken coop, because when it gets cold, you can move the coop closer to your house.

Chicken Coop Idea 2: Cleaning The Coop

Cleaning The Coop

Another chicken coop idea refers to the maintenance. By elevating it some inches off the ground it is getting a lot easier for you to clean up all of the birds droppings. By elevating it about 1-2 inches off the ground it also gets harder for predators to get into the chicken house. Your birds will be a lot safer! And finally, during the hot summer months your hens will have a nice shady area where they can relax.

Chicken Coop Idea 3: Nesting Boxes

Nesting Boxes

I am not sure if you already had this idea… and in the end it is not really a chicken coop idea. It is more a neccessity a lot of people forget about when building a chicken coop: nesting boxes. Right, your hens need a place where they can lay their eggs! Hens need to have nesting boxes in order to be productive. Your house should have ample space for your birds to nest. Of course you also have to be able to access the nesting boxes, because you have to pick up the eggs and clean the boxes from time to time.

Chicken Coop Idea 4: Make Your Coop Fit To Your Living Area

Make Your Coop Fit To Your Living Area

Well, making the chicken coop fit your environment might not be something you have to think about when living in a rural area. However, if you live in the suburbs, this is definitely something to think about. You do not want to upset your neighbors, do you? Having uneasy relations with your neighbors because of your design and color would take a lot of fun out of raising chickens. It is probably a wise decision to make your coop eye pleasing to your neighbors and keep them happy as well.

Building an easy Chicken House

Creating a backyard chicken house will help you to harvest organic eggs, raise chickens for meat, recycle the food scraps and develop high-quality fertilizer from chicken waste. After some work, it’s simpler than it may seem! Read underneath the jump for that easy steps involved with creating a chicken house in your own home.

Steps

  1. Set goals. Create a arrange for your chicken house according to current or future needs. Think about the number of chickens you intend to help keep, just how much space you’ve, as well as for what purpose you are keeping chickens. Your solutions to those questions will affect the way you construct your coop.
  2. Height. Most chicken coops are elevated 2 or 3 ft off the floor. Elevated height helps make the chickens less available to predators. Getting your coop too near to the ground may also provide space for rodents to nest.
  3. Insulation. Based on where you reside, your coop may need pretty much insulation in the outdoors elements. Select your materials depending on how much defense against the weather your chickens will need.
  4. Ventilation. Since your chickens is going to be eliminating within the coop, you will need to keep air flowing through it. Most vents contain hinged flaps around the sides from the coop which are propped up, using the openings engrossed in chicken wire.
  5. Water and food. Your chickens will require use of food and water that is clean within the coop, from the litter. The machine you utilize for this is often simple or elaborate based on your requirements.
  6. Perches. Perches within the coop will give you a spot for your chickens to roost during the night. Keep in mind that chickens choose to sleep on the perch, which the perches have to be far enough apart the chickens will not maintain full connection with one another.
  7. Litter. Because chickens don’t control their eliminations, you will need to provide some kind of litter underneath the perches for example straw or wood shavings. Getting the waste mounted on filler can make the coop simpler to wash furthermore, used litter could make excellent fertilizer.
  8. Nest boxes. Your nest box ought to be a little, shallow space where your chickens can lay eggs. Avoid which makes it too spacious or comfortable, so the chickens aren’t asked to live there for too lengthy. Some coops are made so that the eggs in the nest box could be utilized using a small door around the outdoors from the coop.
  9. Ramp. To exit the improved coop, your chickens will require a little ramp going lower towards the yard. Paint the ramp with a combination of sand and paint to really make it less slippery, and add mix strips (like frets on the guitar) for that chickens to make use of like little steps. In case your ramp doesn’t get into a specific yard, you will want so that you can close up during the night to help keep the chickens safe within the coop.
  10. Assemble materials and tools. At least, you will need wood or plywood in a number of sizes, nails, chicken wire, hinges, screws and litter. If you are creating a more difficult coop, you will need more varied materials. Furthermore, you will need a calculating tape, sander, power saw, hammer, drill, workbench, nose and mouth mask and leather mitts. You could possibly get these products from second-hands shops.
  11. Begin to build. When you are constructing the coop, attempt to build methodically to ensure that it’s not necessary to return and connect mistakes.
  12. Join the underside frames first, then your side frames and supporting frames. In assembling the frames, where they should be became a member of, use wood glue to carry them in position and drill really small pilot holes for that nails. To make sure that their nails use straight, drill pilot holes. Even better, make use of a miter joint or finish lap joint. The lap joint and also the miter joint are two of the most common joints you should utilize in building your chicken house to make sure stability and sturdiness of the project.
  13. Placed on the sidings (plywood and/or chicken wire) and also the roofing material from the chicken house once the frame is prepared. Make certain that you simply double the size of the wood supports and also the size when growing the dimensions or size of your chicken house. For instance, from the 25mm x 25mm x 2m wood, increase it to 50mm x 50mm x 3m, to make sure that the frame is powerful and durable!
  14. Add some home windows and doorways. The home windows and doorways ought to be the last ones you need to focus on.
  15. Inspect your projects. When things are finished, perform a once-over inspection and plug all seams and joints with insulation material to avoid cold air from entering your flock’s home. You may also paint the chicken house in almost any color you love to match the general character of your house.

Tips

  • Arrange for expansion. Consider building your coop slightly bigger than you presently need in situation you need to do choose to raise more chickens.
  • Many people discover that niche water dishes for cats and dogs work nicely in chicken coops, particularly mixers are affixed to hoses to supply a constant supply of water that is clean.
  • When presenting smaller sized chicks to some coop of chickens, make certain there is a safe, enclosed place in the yard that’s accessible by small holes reduce chicken wire. Make certain they’ve food in this region.
  • Consider creating a chicken tractor.

Warnings

  • Make certain it’s protected from predators.
  • Exercise extreme care whenever using tools.

Chicken Coop Pen

chicken coop pen

A chicken coop pen, which is also called a chicken run (this is the more popular term), is a specific area, oftentimes a yard or lawn, where your chickens can run loose and eat worms, bugs and minerals from the ground. It is almost always enclosed within high chicken wire or tall fences to keep potential predators away. Most of the times a chicken coop pen is connected to a chicken coop to ensure that your chickens can go inside and outside whenever they like.

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Why Should You Build  A Chicken Coop Pen?

chicken coop run

Healthy chicken need to go outside and  also need a lot of  of sunshine. You should note that healthy and happy chickens need between 12-14 hrs of daylight. This way they will stay happy and healthy and lay a lot of eggs. And that’s pf course what you want. Hence it’s not a smart move to keep your backyard chickens locked up inside a hen house constantly. This is why creating a chicken coop pen is a wise decision. By having a chicken coop pen or chicken run, your flock of chickens will have the ability to run freely throughout your backyard and will be able to not only get the sunlight they need, but they will also have a lot of exercise.

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Chicken Coop Pen – Protect Your Flock!

predators

In case your chicken pen is made properly, it will safeguard the flock from potential predators. Keeping chickens inside a hen house with quick access to some restricted yet free ranged chicken pen is the easiest method to ensure your chickens stay happy and healthy.

Another benefit is that  by letting your chickens run freely through  the chicken run they can use their natural instincts to scratch and search in the soil hoping to locate their daily intake of earthworms along with other minerals that can be found in the earth. A chicken pen will even provide them with the area they require to take a bath within the grime, and (for those who have a couple of roosters inside your flock) participate in small-time chicken fights. This can be pretty entertaining to watch. But do not worry, they will not hurt each other!

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Things To Consider Before You Can Start Building Your Chicken Run

Before you start  making a chicken coop pen, you have to consider first what kinds of chickens you’ll be keeping since it can impact your chicken run designs.
If you think that you’ll be raising chickens which are heavy and big, the fence surrounding the chicken run can be lower, because chances of your chicken flying away are low. If this is the case, the chicken pen design is going to be easy and all you need are some wooden posts plus some chicken wire or fencing.

However, if  the size of your chicken flock varies and some of your more compact chickens have a tendency to fly over fences, then you will have to design and construct a chicken coop pen with either closed in wired or netted roof or you will have to construct your pen with through the roof fences.

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Do You Know Your Local Laws?

local laws

Another thing to bear in mind before you are ready to start building your chicken run are the local laws and regulations of chicken keeping. If you reside inside a province or county, raising chickens inside your backyard will most likely not be an issue. If however you intend on raising your chicken flock in an urban area, then you’ve got to seek advice from your town and ask about exactly what the local laws and regulations about keeping chickens inside your yards are. Some laws and regulations permit an acceptable quantity of backyard chickens while other laws and regulations completely forbid the thought of keeping chickens. So make sure you are allowed to keep hens!

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Choosing The Perfect Location For Your Chicken Coop Pen

The next phase before building your chicken coop pen would be to select a location that not simply will accommodate you, in the end you’re building the chicken pen inside your backyard, but will accommodate the chickens as well. It is recommended that you construct a chicken run that has quick access towards the hen house, this way all you need to do is open the chicken house. Plus they can certainly go in and out as they wish. When darkness falls, chickens know where they sleep and they’ll all follow one another inside the coop once they feel it is time to get ready to sleep. When selecting the region for building the chicken coop pen in, be familiar with potential predators close by. You don’t want to construct a chicken pen within an area near potential predators. It isn’t really as disposable since you may think for in residential areas, stray felines roam free during the night and throughout your day they’ve been recognized to climb fences and victimize helpless chicken flocks. For individuals living in the USA, you have to also be familiar with foxes, hawks along with other large chicken-eating potential predators that will visit your flock during nighttime. So make certain you review the guidelines for building a chicken pen in your city and get also informed about potential predators in your area before letting your chickens free within their pen.

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