Building a Chicken Coop

At Building a Chicken Coop our aim is to help you get the best house for your chickens. We will guide you through the different types of coops, downloadable plans, complete kits and the ranges of ready-made hen houses, both simple and elaborate.

Building a chicken coop yourself could be a sensible option as it’s likely to save more than half the cost of buying ready-made. Ready-made coops are normally supplied in panels, so there is still some assembly too.

We found a good set of chicken coop plans so you can build a coop easily and quickly. You only need basic tools and the chicken ark takes less than a day. The plans come with complete instructions, materials and measurements for three different designs:

1 A portable chicken ark suitable for around three hens – great if you’re just starting to keep chickens, and quick to build.

2 An upright hen house with a run - this is good if you want a static house that will take up to five to six chickens, and it is still easy to build.

3 A large pitched roof chicken coop with external nest boxes, which sits inside a large run for a larger flock. Chickens need good protection from the rain and cold, adequate ventilation and light, perches for roosting and nesting boxes to encourage egg laying. Your chicken coop needs to keep your hens safe from predators too - particularly foxes which can burrow underneath runs and will chew through basic chicken-wire. Building your own chicken coop is not as easy as just hammering wood and wire mesh together. If the chickens are safely enclosed in a covered roosting area, they will be protected at night.

In the day-time, your chickens will be safe if you use strong steel mesh for the run. If you do want them to free range, let them out when you are around. Even in suburban areas, foxes are active during the day (we’ve lost two pet rabbits to foxes during the daytime).

It makes sense to build your Chicken Coop from plans that come with materials lists, so the design works and you have clear instructions. Not only will you get the job done much more quickly, you’ll have built an attractive chicken coop for a fraction of the cost of buying ready-made. It’s worth remembering too, that ready-made coops still need to be assembled. You can download building a chicken coop here. It’ll be a great investment that will last you for years.