Photo by Unsplash/NIFTYART
Picture this: you’ve decided to add chickens to
your backyard or homestead. You’re up to speed on basic healthcare and
anatomy, and you think you know what chickens need to be happy. Now
comes the big job – deciding how you’re going to house them.
Once
you start down the road of choosing a style of coop for your new flock,
you quickly discover there are as many plans and opinions about plans as
there are chickens in the world. OK, I exaggerate, but honestly, it
feels like it at first.
There’s the traditional coop and run,
chicken tractors, pastured poultry pens, and paddock systems. And each
one of those has countless different styles and systems to choose from.
It’s exhausting work to figure out what’s going to work for your
‘girls’ (and maybe boys too), especially if you’ve never raised chickens
before.
So how do you figure out the best plan for your new flock?
It’s actually quite simple when you use a system. So I thought I’d
share with you the process I went through to help me evaluate the best
housing choice for our flock of 15.
Questions to Ask
Not
every chicken coop plan is going to be suitable for your specific
situation, so you’ll need to ask yourself a few questions before you
even start looking at plans (trust me – this will save you a ton of time later):
- How many birds will I have eventually?
You might start out with only 5 hens, but what if you want to expand
your flock in a year or two, or add a rooster? You don’t want to have
to start over or be renovating a coop with a flock living in it. At the
very minimum, the ‘average’ full grown chicken needs 7.5 square feet
(each) between outdoor and indoor space its if it’s penned all the time,
and 3 square feet each if free ranging regularly. Larger breeds need a
minimum of 10 square feet penned and 4 square feet if normally free
ranging, and bantams 5 square feet penned and 2 square feet free range.
They need less space in their secure sleeping area than their ‘day
space’, but this would be an average. Keep in mind this is the minimum.
Overcrowding of birds can cause not only social problems (pecking and
fighting, and the resultant injuries you’ll then have to deal with), but
creates a situation ripe for disease transmission as well. Make sure
your birds have enough space! - What breed will be living in your coop/run?
Different species do well in different conditions, so birds that
require more space for optimum health are not going to do well in more
confined spaces. Be sure to look into the requirements for the birds
you’ll be adding to your flock. Most books and many of the top websites
on the topic will have all this information for you. Try
backyardchickens.com for all sorts of info about breeds and coops. - What’s the topography of your property?
Our 6+ acres are hilly and mostly forested – not so good for portable
rolling pens. If you’ve got a flat property, it definitely increases
your options. - Do you have room near the house to create your chicken housing?
Well, not right beside your house, but if you live in an area with
predators (and many of us do), you’ll want to be within earshot of the
chickens so you’ll be awake and aware should something with teeth go
marauding in the dead of night. Some people claim you can leave
chickens for days if they have the right housing, but that’s just not
something I’d advise if you’re surrounded by big, opportunistic
predators (yes, even if you’ve got a livestock dog). - What sorts of predators live in your area?
This will dictate how secure your housing will have to be. We have
weasels, raccoons, fishers, coyotes, bears and cougars to be concerned
about, not to mention flying predators like red tailed hawks and
ravens. Lots of coop plans have external doors for accessing the nest
boxes – in our case, we decided against that style, as it would have
made it easier pickin’s for the resident black bears (they’re weirdly
dexterous with their mouths and paws). You’ll also see a lot of plans
with open flooring so the poop falls through into some sort of
collection space – apparently this reduces cleaning requirements, but it
would not be at all safe in our neck of the woods, as any gauge of wire
mesh that would be big enough to let feces fall through would also
allow the resident weasels an open door to our hens and rooster. I
don’t think so… Plus the idea of the birds having to walk on wire just
seems wrong to me. - What’s your budget? You can
spend $2000 on a fancy coop with all the bells and whistles, or you can
convert an existing building for $100 or less. We built a sturdy,
predator-proof coop for around $200, plus another $100 for water founts,
feeders and a rubber trough. But we had our own lumber and shingles
and used many re-purposed building materials (concrete board, trailer
trusses, roosts, windows). The only thing we had to buy was some of the
hardware cloth and chicken wire, and all the hinges and locks, as well
as the linoleum for the floor. Be sure to make note of all the costs so
there are no surprises part way through the project. - Do you have access to reused materials?
This will save you a lot of money, but will potentially add a lot of
time to your project. Plus you’ll want to make sure the re-used
materials are clean and that they’ll keep your birds safe from
predators. Free materials aren’t a very good deal if you lose your
birds, but they can make your coop unique and will pull some materials
out of the waste stream that might otherwise have gone to landfill (or
languished in someone’s shed for decades). - Do you want a pre-designed plan, to customize a plan according to your own needs, or buy a pre-built coop?
This will obviously depend on your budget, how much time you have
available, and how good your constructions skills are. The fastest
option is to buy a pre-built unit, but that may not suit your specific
situation, nor your budget. If you choose to build your own, be sure to
assess (realistically) how much time it will take and if you have that
available to build an adquate shelter for your birds. If not, consider
getting some help. Especially if your birds are on their way… 😉
Answering
these questions honestly will provide a solid base for you to evaluate
all those funky, stylin’ coop plans you’ve bookmarked.
Evaluate the Plans
Now,
grab a cup of your favorite beverage and go through all those websites
and chicken-raising books using these worksheets I put together to help
you evaluate your favorite plans:
- Download: Chicken Housing Analysis Worksheet (Excel file)
- Download: Chicken Housing Analysis Worksheet (PDF)
The
worksheet will help you evaluate all the various options – a ‘winner’
should become clear pretty quickly. It may be that you have to tweak as
you go. It may be that you have to substitute some materials for
others that you have available. But if you’ve done the work, you’ll end
up with a housing system that will work for your property, your
lifestyle, and your birds. And that means you’ll enjoy your
chicken-raising adventure so much more than if you build a coop that’s
not right for your specific situation and you spend the next year
cursing it.
And remember, you can always come over to the Facebook
page and ask questions of all our chicken-raising experts there!
Do you have any advice to share on finding the right chicken coop plan? Let us know in the comments below. Your advice may just help someone keep their girls safe and sound – and happy!
