Build a Chicken Coop – What You Need to Know

There are several different things you need to take into consideration when building a chicken coop. For starters, we want the chickens who will be living in it to be healthy. It’s also important that it look nice and be easy to clean.

I’m going to go over the different aspects that you need to think about when building a chicken coop. First, we’re going to go over the appearance of your chicken coop.

Although it’s really secondary to the health of my chickens, it’s important to me that my chicken coop looks nice. Who wants to have an eyesore in their backyard? This is especially important if you have neighbors. They don’t really want to have a neighbor who hideous buildings in their backyard. Start out with a good set of plans. After you have your plans think of what colors you want your chicken coop to be. I actually stain the wood I use and than put a couple coats of varnish on it. It doesn’t cost anymore than paint, but the finished product looks very nice. I use shingles for the top of the chicken coop and I actually get them for free! All you need to do is call up some local contractors and ask them if they have any left over.

When building your chicken coop always let your judgement have a say. I’ll give you an example. In the paragraph above I said that I use stain and varnish on my wood. This actually serves a second purpose. I can easily spray down the coop (including the floor) in a couple minutes. The varnish does start to peel after a couple years, but it only takes an afternoon to put some more coats on. One other thing that I’ve done is slope the floor towards the doorway. That way everytime I wash it out all the water collects somewhere that’s easy to take out. There’s nothing worse than water puddling in your coop because it can cause some serious problems (especially if mold starts to grow).

Another thing you need to think about is protection against the weather. Your chicken coop needs to be protected from rain, wind, hot sun etc. That means our chicken coop needs to be well sealed, but have some doors and windows that can open for ventilation. Shingles on the roof will keep any rainwater out. Exterior silicone caulking (I use white because it looks nice with the wood) will seal up the rest of the coop quite nicely. Each side of the coop has a small sliding window (which I got for free by calling up local contractors) which I can open to provide ventilation. The door opens outward and I use some weather stripping so it forms a nice tight seal. I’ve never woken up in the morning to find the interior wet because it rained during the night. The chickens seem to like that fact too.

I’ve briefly touched on ventilation. As I said, I have 4 windows- one on each side of the coop; however, this doesn’t really provide air flow. What I’ve done is add two vents at the top of the coop so the hot air can escape. The windows combined with the vents provides more than enough ventilation for them. The reason we ventilate the coop so well is to provide ample air movement, but it’s also imperative to let the ammonia smell out. I’ve been in a chicken coop without ventilation and I almost passed out… I can’t imagine the chickens liked it either.

I should also mention that if you live in a colder climate where you have snow on the ground you will need to insulate the walls. Chickens can do quite well in a colder climate, but if it gets too cold your chickens could face some health issues. Insulating by itself is just fine as the heat they produce will keep it warmer than it is outside.

Lastly, you’re going to want to build a little stand where you put the chicken waterers and feeders. I know from experience that if the waterers or food are placed on the ground there’s only going to be a huge mess that you need to clean up. All that’s required here is to make a little stand that’s about 6 inches tall. Tall enough so the chickens can still reach it, but not so short that they can scratch in it.

There you have it. If you take each of the preceding things into consideration when building your chicken coop you’ll have healthy chickens and you won’t annoy your neighbors.

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