How to Build a Chicken Coop – Important Factors to Consider Before You Build a Chicken Coop

When you first start your research on how to build a chicken coop, you may quickly find out that it can be one of the most confusing tasks facing the beginning chicken farmer. There are thousands of different  variations, along with a myriad of factors that need to be taken into account before you decide on a final design.  And that’s just for the chicken coop plans  not any of the other factors such as material choices, construction methods, or placement of the coop to just to name a few.   Below you’ll find three of the most important concepts that can help you before you get started.

Chicken Coops Provide Shelter and Protection

The main purpose of a chicken coop is to provide protection to the chickens. Chickens need to be kept warm, dry, and sheltered from the elements, much like their human counterparts!  Rain, snow, and wind can all be detrimental to the welfare of the chickens.  This can lead to decreased egg or meat production and unhealthy chickens.  Not something you’ll want to deal with when you’re first starting out.  Keep in mind that the chicken doesn’t care what the coop looks like. It only wants it warm, dry, and comfortable. You on the other hand may want to make it look as good as it can, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Some people have designed their chicken coops to look like a child’s playhouse in order to fit in with the surroundings of their property, while others have built bare bones coops out of scrap wood and pallets. As long as the chicken’s needs are met, the sky is the limit as to what you build. But as a first timer, you’ll probably be better off using commercially available plans that have been tested over time.

Protection from Predators

While this certainly falls under the shelter and protection part above, it’s so important that it needs to be emphasized.   Chickens are basically defenseless animals that need to be completely protected from predators. Chickens are especially vulnerable to attacks from raccoons, coyotes, foxes, hawks, and even some dogs.  Your chicken coop needs to be an impenetrable fortress for the chickens, providing them complete safety from any of these predators.  There isn’t much worse than finding that your flock has been ravaged by a predator. Keep them safe!

Clean Chickens are Happy Chickens

Not only is it true for humans, it’s true for chickens too. You need to design your coop so that it provides easy access for you to perform frequent cleaning. In order to provide a place where chickens are healthy and happy, they need to have clean surroundings.  This means that you’ll need access in order to change their bedding and clean up after them on a regular basis. This is often the most important design detail that you’ll need to consider since it’s effective implementation benefits you directly. If it’s hard to clean out the chicken coop, the less likely you are to do it, and in turn the less healthy and happy the chickens will be. Keep them clean and their production will increase.

In this video I do an overview of how to build a simple 4′ X 4′ chicken coop. This coop has enough room for about 4-6 chickens and is build with 3 nesting bo…
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