Chicken Coop Plans

I have been researching chicken coops most of the summer.  There are a lot of plans and ideas on the Internet but none seemed to be exactly what we wanted.  Raising chickens is growing in popularity but most coop plans are designed for small yards (less than eight birds) or for someone intending to make a living off chickens by raising hundreds of them.  We plan to have between fifteen and thirty birds and so fell somewhere between what is commonly needed.  So, I was left to take what I considered to be the best ideas from various coop designs, mix in a few ideas from local farmers and meld them into a coop design to meet our needs. 

 

Here are some standards/requirements for a chicken coop:

• Minimum of two square feet of floor space per chicken
• Eight inches of roosting space per chicken (roost should be at least two feet above the floor)
• At least one nesting box per four hens
• Protection from predators (snakes, raccoons, foxes, etc.)
• Good ventilation

In addition, we had the following preferences:

• Easy external access for egg collection
• Easy provision of drinking water and food
• Easy cleanup of the coop
• Easy collection of waste products (chicken manure is a fantastic garden fertilizer)
• An attractive coop

After taking all of these factors into consideration, we came up with the following design features:

• The coop will be eight feet wide, eight feet deep and approximately five feet high.  This sixty-four square feet of floor space will accommodate up to thirty-two birds.  While that might be a little crowded, they will only be in the coop at night and will have a thirty-by-thirty foot pen for daytime use along with some free-ranging opportunities (after I train the dogs to ignore them).
• There will be eight nesting boxes that can be accessed from outside the coop by lifting a hinged door. 
• The coop will be three feet above the ground with two doors and two windows.  One door will be for the chickens (with a ramp) and the other for us.  All doors and windows will have spring catch locks.
• The top six inches on all walls will be open and covered with hardwire cloth for ventilation as will the windows.
• There will be a PVC feeding tube that is accessed from outside the coop to drop food into a pan.  The tube will be big enough to hold several days of food.
• We will buy and install an automatic drip watering system.
• The floor will consist of two inch by six inch joists covered with one-quarter inch hardwire cloth.  This will allow chicken waste to fall to the ground for easy collection with a shovel and no need to clean the coop floor or have or replace litter.  In fact, we intend to never go inside the coop.  Any inside cleaning can be done with a spray hose from the door. 
• The coop will be covered with wood siding (painted barn red) and covered with a white metal roof.

I hope to have it finished by the end of this week if the weather cooperates and will post a picture of the finished product.  Pam plans to order the chickens for spring delivery.  She has been studying the various breeds with a strong interest in heritage breeds.  She claims she will be the queen of the chickens after I get the coop built (we shall see). 

 

Once the coop is finished, I have to construct a swing/play set before Christmas for Ava and Cora.  I bought a kit that has everything but the lumber which I will buy, cut and put together.  Any spare time will be devoted to continued clearing of brush and repairing fences.  Last, its time to plant fruit trees and bushes.  While I am busy with all of this, we hope to see significant progress on our home construction.  The builder only worked about two days in November so this is as far as they got.

 

 

After twelve months, twenty four days and twenty and a half hours of living in this camper...we are ready for this house to be built.