When we adopted our chickens, I didn’t want to build them a new coop. I hadn’t made anything out of wood since grade 8 woodworking class and I had no ambition to change that. But the coop they came with wasn’t ideal and I couldn’t find an easy solution. The only pre-made coops we liked ran well over $1000 and my Craigslist alert for used coops kept sending me garbage options. Reluctantly, I threw myself into researching and designing a DIY coop, obsessing over every last detail for months. The project was much more challenging than I anticipated, but I came out the other side much more knowledgeable about chickens and woodworking—and, rather importantly, happy with the final product.
My primary goals were to design a home for our chickens that:
• attended to all of their needs (comfort, safety, etc.)
• was relatively low maintenance
• was aesthetically appealing
I spent a lot of time looking at DIY designs for chicken coops, thinking that if I could find a detailed plan that worked for us that would be the easiest route. But I couldn’t quite find the perfect one, so I took what I liked from other designs—including many on BYC—and combined them into our own design.
We really liked the size, shape, and style of the Wichita Cabin Coop. But we didn’t need to build the entire thing. We had a run already, given to us when we adopted our small flock of three chickens. So I modified the Wichita design to suit our purposes, only building the 3' x 5' coop and leaving off the run. The framing had to be changed quite a bit and for part of it I used this coop as inspiration.
Our existing run was only 2' tall so that constrained the design somewhat. I wanted an elevated coop but the side exit door in the Wichita wasn’t going to work. I knew a trap door/floor exit wasn’t ideal for many reasons (e.g., reduces floor space, makes it harder to use deep litter method), but that seemed to be the best option if we wanted to avoid building a run as well.
The coop would have been easier to build if we’d sided it with sheets of Smart Siding. I was tempted to do that to cut down on time, effort, and cost, but my partner, who helped build the coop, really wanted cedar and he was willing to put in the effort to get that look. It ended up being a lot of work cutting and placing the cedar siding, but we’re happy with how it looks and it’s become a centerpiece of our backyard. We also found imperfect cedar siding at a local hardware store that was being sold at a discount, which reduced the price significantly.
During construction, we happened to watch an architecture show called Home, which, during one episode, described a method of finishing cedar siding called “yakisugi.” It’s a centuries-old method in Japan that involves burning the outer layer of cedar siding, which protects the wood ("yaki" means burn in Japanese and "sugi" means cedar). We really liked the natural look of it so we decided to incorporate that technique into our design. I didn’t want our entire coop to be black because that would get hot in the summer, but we burned a few accent pieces: the wood used on the nest box, the wood around the window, and a few boards on the side opposite the nest box. We think it gives the coop a unique, modern aesthetic.
I spent a lot of time researching the ventilation needs of chickens when designing our coop. When doing so, I realized most coops—especially pre-made ones—get that part wrong. They don’t have anywhere close to the amount of ventilation needed, especially when it comes to ventilation that stays open all year long. I had initially planned on adding a series of 2'' holes along the roof line, but after reading this BYC article I realized we’d need a crazy number of holes to get the amount of ventilation required.
I ended up re-designing the framing so there’d be a 29'' by 3.5'' opening just under the roof-line on both the front and back (an idea inspired by this coop). The front opening stays open year-round and the back opening has a flap so it can be closed during the winter months. The trap door on the floor stays open year round. And there's a hinged 15'' x 15'' window on the front door that can be propped open in the warmer months. We opted not to add a side window, as in the Wichita Coop, because we don’t live in a humid climate—even during the hot days of summer, nighttime temperatures generally cool down—and we thought one south-facing window would be enough.
I also spent a lot of time researching the roosting needs of chickens, which are intertwined with ventilation and coop height. I liked the rule of thumb on this website that coops should be a minimum of 3.5' high on their shortest side, a height that allows for a roost height of ~20'' and ventilation above the chickens’ heads. The reason this is so important is because you don’t want wind coming into openings during the winter and blowing directly on the chickens; they’re relatively good at keeping warm during cold nights, but only when they’re protected from the wind. For that reason, our coop is ~4.5' tall in the front (relative to the coop floor) and ~3.5' tall in the back, with a roost height of ~20'' above the bedding. That roost height works well because it's high enough for the chickens to walk underneath it and low enough that any arthritic chicken should be fine jumping off of it. One of our chickens isn't a particularly good jumper, and I'm not sure she'd be very happy with a roost much higher than that.
We gave our chickens a 2'' dowel to roost on. I know many BYC members swear by a 2x4 roost with the wide side up and won’t like that we didn’t do that. But here’s my rationale: I looked up all the scientific studies I could find that examined chicken roost preferences and they all found that, when given the choice, chickens prefer roosts that are roughly 2'' in diameter. In none of the studies did chickens prefer flat, wide roosts. I know the argument is that they can keep their feet warmer in the winter on a flat surface, but it rarely gets super cold here and I was more concerned about their year-round comfort.
The 2'' dowel was a bit pricey as far as wood goes ($10), but the cheaper 2x2 lumber was too small (actual size: 1.5x1.5) and if I were a chicken—having evolved to roost on round tree branches—I’d want a round roost to sleep on. Considering they spend 14+ hours per day on the roost in the colder months, I decided that spending up on a good, comfortable perch was a nice thing to do for them. They’ve gone through a few cold nights on that roost, down to -18'F, and they’ve been totally fine; they puff up their feathers so much that their feet seem pretty well covered.
Security was important for us because raccoons sometimes roam through our backyard. We used ½'' hardware cloth across all openings—not chicken wire, which raccoons can rip through—and we surrounded the entire coop and run complex with a 1.5' wide skirt of hardware cloth (see photos below) to prevent diggers from getting in. The latches on the coop doors twist closed and they’re also secured with carabiners. So far—six months into the chickens living there—we haven’t had a problem with anything getting into the coop. It’s nice to not have to worry when we hear raccoons scurrying across our roof at night.
The hardware cloth skirt helps with our low maintenance goal as well because it means we can keep the door from the coop to the run open at all times. That’s important for us because we wanted to be able to leave our chickens when we go away on trips and not have to ask someone to come over at dawn and dusk to let them in an out of their sleeping quarters. I’m not a morning person, so I didn’t particularly want to have to let them out at the crack of dawn each day either. We have friends with that sort of arrangement and their chickens wake them up in the morning wanting out; ours don’t do that.
Our coop is low maintenance in other ways as well. We constructed a PVC feeder that holds ~1.5 weeks of food for three chickens and can be easily filled from outside the coop; we have a nipple water system that plugs into an electrical cord, so the water stays clean and doesn’t freeze in the winter; and the front door doesn’t have a lip, making it easy to sweep the used bedding into a wheelbarrow and take it to our compost pile. I also put a rubber mat on the bottom of the coop (beneath the bedding), which protects the OSB floor and can be removed and hosed off pretty easily.
The coop easily accommodates what we consider to be our ideal flock size: three or four birds. I know we may feel the urge to add more as time goes on, but we free range our birds during the day and I’m not sure our yard can handle more than four. The coop could in theory accommodate five (or potentially six) birds, but for that to work I think we would need to build a larger run and also possibly install a side door exit to the coop and cover up the trap door.
When designing the coop, I played around with different configurations using Excel (I tried SketchUp first but found it to have a steep learning curve and I wasn't willing to invest the time). Below are screenshots of the plans I landed on. I couldn't seem to attach an Excel file to this page but I'd be happy to share the raw file, which shows the exact length of each framing element. My contact information is at the end of this post; feel free to email me.
Side framing:
Roof and floor framing (view from above):
Color/pattern scheme in diagrams:
I'm also including photos and a description of the building process below, which should hopefully give you an idea how you could recreate something similar. I'm not a construction expert by any stretch of the imagination so please keep that in mind. I should also note that I switch back and forth between "I" and "we" a lot because my partner (who is much handier than me) helped with a ton of steps but I did some myself. I'll also add that we did all of our cuts with a miter saw, a handheld circular saw, or a jigsaw. Some steps would have been easier if we'd had a table saw.
We pre-stained the wood we used to build the frame with Penofin Verde (color: cedar), a nontoxic oil-based stain that should be long lasting. It was a bit pricey, but the nontoxic aspect was really important to us. I considered another nontoxic wood treatment option recommended by the creators of the Garden Coop, but decided against it because we didn't want our wood to turn grey over time.
We assembled our frame in the backyard because we (unfortunately) didn't have the option of assembling it on flat cement in a driveway or garage. The bottom four pieces were 2x4 cedar because we wanted more rot-resistant wood as the ground contact layer. The wood on the front and back panels is 2x4 pine. And the lighter-colored pieces that form the horizontal platform (which we didn't bother staining because they're not exposed to the elements) is 2x3 pine. As a novice construction person, I learned a handy tip when researching how to do this step: measure across the diagonal as a check to make sure the frame is square. That helped us make adjustments at that stage, but we did run across issues with our frame not being square later on (see below).
Before placing the frame where we wanted to build our coop, I leveled the spot by bringing in soil from elsewhere in our yard and tamping it down. I then placed bricks every few feet under the footprint of the frame to elevate it off the soil. Admittedly, this isn't the most professional way to construct a foundation and there has been some sinking over time, but it did the job. Friends of ours did this with their coop and it's been fine for many years.
Next, we put on the roof. It's designed to have a slope of 3:12, which is the minimum slope you'd want for a metal roof. I opted to not go any steeper because we rarely get huge dumps of snow and—based on what I read—the steeper your roof, the harder the construction. (This website was helpful researching this step.) I don't have photos of this, but before putting on the roof we completed a fairly critical step: We cut birdsmouth notches in our roof rafters. I found this website helpful when calculating how to cut those notches. We mostly got the cuts right, but in hindsight we probably should have been a bit more careful when measuring and cutting because the notches really determine how square the frame is. After this step, our front and back panels ended up not being perfectly square (not quite upright by 90 degrees), a mistake that made it more challenging when cutting the tongue and groove cedar siding later on.
Another thing that is not pictured here is how we cut the 2x4 sections that fit between the roof rafters on the front and back (just under the plywood). We cut the top of those pieces at an angle to match the slope of the roof. Those were also stained before adding them to the coop.
We installed felt roofing paper on the plywood for extra waterproofing protection. We also added a drip edge around the exterior before putting on the metal roofing.
I designed the coop such that one 4' wide piece of plywood would cover it, which was the perfect width to then use two, 2' wide corrugated metal roofing sheets. That left us with a 11'' overhang on the front, a 5'' overhang on the sides, and a 6'' overhang on the back (actual overhangs are a bit larger because the metal sheets extend out ~1'' further than the plywood). The front overhang is larger than the others because it protects the ventilation opening that stays open year-round.
Next we cut, stained, and added more 2x4 pieces along the base of the coop and secured hardware cloth from the inside (it would have been much harder to install the hardware cloth after the coop floor was put in place, so best to do it at this stage). The horizontal 2x4 pieces that frame the coop floor were secured to the 2x3 pieces so as to create a pocket for the OSB we used for the floor of the coop (i.e., those pieces of wood were offset by exactly the thickness of the OSB). This design element was critical because our final coop had exposed framing and I didn't want the OSB to be visible; I also didn't want a lip at the coop door because I wanted to be able to easily sweep the bedding into a wheelbarrow rather than having to scoop it out.
At this stage, we also added a few more (unstained) 2x3 pieces to frame the trap door (you might notice that the 2x3s look a bit different than in the initial frame photo—we adjusted their placement at this stage based on the trap door location and where we wanted to hang the water from). Note that at this point we've managed to keep almost all of our screws hidden; most aren't visible from the outside of the coop, which we like from an aesthetic standpoint.
The chickens started to take a liking to the coop
We cut OSB to form the floor of the coop and left gaps along the edges and between the pieces to allow for wood expansion (otherwise you risk the OSB bubbling up). We also added a lip around the trap door to keep bedding in as much as we could and to give the chickens something to grab onto. You may notice here that we added a few 2x4 pieces along the wall where the ramp comes up to extend it out from the wall and to give the chickens a bit of a landing platform. I read that chickens are sometimes scared of trap door exits so I thought this might make it easier for them. I also thought it might be awkward for them having the ramp come up directly at the wall. They do use the landing platform so I think this design worked out well.
We built a ramp out of cedar fencing we had leftover from a fence build and we stained it with the Penofin Verde. The ramp slope was less than 45 degrees and we put 2x1 rungs along its length every 3 inches, so the chickens wouldn’t slide when they went up and down. From what I understand, chickens don’t like steep ramps—especially ones that exceed 45 degrees—and when ramps are on the steep side it’s important to have rungs every 3 inches. If your ramp is less steep then you can get away with rungs every 6 inches or so. Based on my observations of the chickens going up and down, they're really comfortable with this ramp and the 3 inch spacing of the rungs works well. If I had to do things over, I might make the trap door a few inches smaller though (it's currently 18'' long and 12'' wide). The chickens don't seem to need quite so much headspace when they're walking up the ramp, although if we have larger chickens in the future that could change.
The top of the ramp is secured with a screw eye and screw hook connection, which makes it easy to unhook the ramp and remove it from the coop for periodic cleaning. I think I got that idea from someone on YouTube (another handy resource for DIY coop ideas).
I started training them to use the ramp at this stage. It was easiest to do that before the siding was on the coop. I put some food—usually bread crumbs or beet greens—at the top of the ramp to encourage them to walk up it. They were hesitant at first, but they quickly got the hang of it.
I wanted the OSB floor of the coop to be protected because the last thing I wanted to do in 5 years was replace it. I read about using linoleum as a floor covering, but I quickly rejected that idea because BYC members reported it fraying over time; it can also be slippery for chickens if there's not enough bedding. Then I thought about painting the coop floor with Blackjack 57, a rubber coating that is recommended by some BYC members. But I decided against that because it sounded like the application process was a bit of a pain (it's hard to mix the rubber and it takes a long time to dry). It was only $10-15 more to buy a 3' x 5' rubber utility mat, so I decided to buy that instead to make the process easier. I cut the mat using an exacto knife to perfectly fit the floor of the coop. I really like this method because when I'm cleaning the coop I can remove the mat and hose it down.
In the above photo, you'll also notice that we added some vertical pieces of 2x4 lumber (unstained) to each corner of the coop. These pieces served as attachment points for the tongue and groove cedar siding (we nailed the siding into those pieces).
I added a flap to cover the ventilation hole at the back of the coop using 1x4 lumber. This photo was taken before it was stained a cedar color.
And here's another view of the back ventilation, this time with the flap open.
Next we built the frame of the next box using a mix of 2x3s, 2x2s, and OSB. Each compartment is 12'' square, which is a size that's worked out well for even our largest chicken. We put in a divider because in our old coop we had one large continuous nest box and one chicken made a habit of lying on top of another chicken (her best friend) when she was laying an egg. It was cute—especially because the bird on top was the most subordinate chicken and the bird on the bottom was the most dominant—but it looked annoying for the chicken trying to lay an egg. This design put an end to that behavior; there's only room for one chicken per box.
We added more 2x4 pieces (unstained) to the frame to serve as attachment points for the nest box, siding, and roost. The nest box frame was then screwed into the main frame from the inside of the coop (sorry, that part isn't pictured here). I like that design element because it means we can remove the nest box easily by just unscrewing a few easily-accessible screws. If we ever want to move our coop out of our backyard we'll have to take off the nest box to squeeze it through the gate, which is the main reason I designed it that way (most other next box designs I saw online wouldn't be removable, at least not easily).
The black on top of the nest box is felt roofing paper and the black on the nest box floors are custom-cut rubber mats (made out of what was left over from the part of the floor mat I cut out for the trap door).
We added the tongue and groove cedar siding next. We installed it unstained and stained it after it was on the coop.
Here's a photo of the siding up on the east-facing side of the coop. This is after it was stained using the Penofin Verde in cedar color. It was pretty easy placing the siding on the back wall but the sides took more time because the frame wasn't square (see birdsmouth notch issues mentioned above) and we had to perfectly cut the angled pieces along the roof line. It was also difficult to fit on the topmost pieces so we had to cut them in half to get them into place. This step took WAY longer than we anticipated and it was a huge pain, but we do like the look of the exposed framing and cedar siding. It's nice now that it's done, in other words. If you want a similar look but without as much trouble, you could do away with the exposed framing as in this coop.
We used cedar fencing boards on the nest box instead of the tongue and groove siding because we thought the different width of the wood would make the nest box look more like a unique element of the coop (it was also preferable to not deal with the tongue and groove attachments for that part of the coop). As you can see, the nest box wood is black—which brings me to a description of our burning technique.
The yakisugi wood was entirely my partner's domain and he experimented with different methods. He started by using the traditional Japanese method: tying three pieces of wood into a triangle (using metal wire) and placing the "tube" on its end on top of an open fire. As you can see in the photo below, the fire burns within the tube, charring the inner part of the wood and leaving the outer portion mostly unburned. He used long fire-proof gloves and safety glasses when handling the burning wood.
That method worked but he found that it burned unevenly and was hard to control (i.e., it got a bit dangerous...). So, we bought a blow torch that attaches to a propane tank. Below is a photo of him using that method, which he ended up preferring:
He used that method to burn the rest of the yakisugi elements: the frame of the window and the bottom three boards on the west-facing side of the coop. The tongue and groove siding was hard to burn because the tongue and the groove elements burned off easily; he had to be very careful with that. He also figured out that he had to burn the rough (as opposed to the smooth) side, otherwise he couldn't get the look we wanted. Smooth wood doesn't burn very well. (Pine also doesn't burn well, in case you were wondering. We tested it with some spare wood and it didn't look the same.)
We wanted our yakisugi to be pure black so we didn't brush the charcoal off after burning. I could imagine building a coop that uses non-black yakisugi wood (with the charcoal brushed off, it looks mostly brown with black swirls). The benefit of that would be that the coop wouldn't be pure black so it wouldn't get as hot. I think if I went that route, I wouldn't want exposed framing on the coop; instead, I'd want to cover the entire outer structure with the yakisugi wood. For more information about yakisugi, I recommend this website.
Once the yakisugi boards were in place I applied two coats of clear Penofin Verde. In theory the boards didn't need staining but I didn't want the charcoal to rub off on us, especially when touching the nest box and window frame. I didn't use the cedar-colored stain because I didn't want the black to appear brown. We had some leftover clear Penofin Verde from another project, so we didn't need to go out and buy it just for those boards, which was nice.
We didn't want the entire west-facing side of the coop to be black so we placed unburnt cedar along the rest of that side. This photo shows that side before the cedar stain was applied to the unburnt siding.
The chickens made a point of inspecting our work to make sure it was up to code.
Here, you can see the 2'' dowel roost. I made braces for either side of the dowel by drilling a 2'' hole in a 2x4 and cutting it in half to create two semicircles. At the bottom of the photo you can also see the door I built for the opening to the run below. I made it out of two layers of 1x4 lumber I found in the 70% off bin at Home Depot; hardware cloth was sandwiched in between the layers.
Next I made a front door with a 15'' x 15'' window opening.
In the above photo you can also see the metal roof on the nest box. I didn't want to go out and buy a huge metal sheet for a tiny nest box, so I made due with the metal that was left over from the roof. The leftover sections were only ~12'' long so it barely worked. I ended up designing the nest box so that the metal roofing sheet doesn't go all the way up to the coop wall. There's a ledge at the top, which I later covered with a piece of yakisugi wood (see photos at end of this article).
The hardware cloth was secured to the inside of the door with screws and washers.
We put these latches on the front door and the door going into the run. To get this open, a raccoon would have to figure out how to get the carabiner off and how to twist the latch. A barrel bolt latch would have been cheaper but less secure.
I added a removable board along the door to hold the bedding in when the door is opened. This has been a handy feature because once that's removed it's really easy to sweep out the bedding and remove the rubber mat if needed.
I built a PVC feeder using these pieces. I experimented with different configurations before using PVC glue to glue them all together. My first iteration didn't bring food down close enough to the opening so I cut a few inches off the 45 degree elbow. That seemed to work better. Then I had problems with the chickens flicking feed out of the feeder so I screwed in this piece to the end of the 45 degree elbow:
...and that solved the problem. The outer rectangle part serves as a weather protector and the lower lip it creates prevents the birds from flicking food out of the feeder. I had to screw that piece on because it was a slightly larger diameter than the 45 degree elbow.
I secured the feeder to the coop using some metal tape.
I also fitted some spare hardware cloth to the base of the feeder to prevent mice from getting in that opening.
Here's a view of a chicken eating out of the feeder. The white jar to the right of it holds crushed oyster shells (grit is also available on a different side of the coop).
The chickens hadn't moved in yet but they started to spend a lot of time in the bottom of the coop. It clearly had good vibes
We put a door and latch on the nest box. It's not pictured here, but I also cut 2x2 segments to fit along the bottom of the nest box openings to keep the nesting material in the boxes (as much as possible) when opening the door. I wanted a nest box door that folded down because I wanted to make it easy to clean out the bedding. In our chickens' former coop, the nest box was opened by tilting the roof up and it was much harder to clean because you had to scoop out the nesting material; with this design, you can sweep it out much more easily.
Nearing the move-in-date, we placed our run next to our new coop. I'd designed the coop so that there was an opening on the bottom that perfectly fit the size of the run. I realize this design doesn't allow for a perch in the run, but our chickens had a perch in the run of their old coop and they hardly ever used it. Our birds also free range all the time and hardly ever perch on anything; instead, they seem to prefer laying on the ground when they're relaxing. So I didn't feel bad about the lack of a perch in the run.
I cut hardware cloth to form a skirt along the entire outside edge of the coop/run complex and secured it to the base using poultry staples. This prevents diggers from getting into the coop and makes it much more secure. All the cloth was a bit pricey and it took some time to cut it and put it into place, but I think it's worth it for safety and peace of mind.
Then, finally, I added pine shavings (flakes from Tractor Supply) on top of the rubber mat as bedding. More than two months after starting the build, we were finally ready for the chickens to move in!
This was exciting but move in day turned out to be a bit of an ordeal. We locked them in the run and thought they'd figure out how to "go to bed" once dusk set in, but they ended up freaking out because they couldn't get to their old coop. We had to pick them up and place them on the roost inside the new coop. They REALLY disliked that but after a few days they got used to the idea that they were supposed to sleep in a new place. We didn't free range them for a few days to reinforce the idea that this was their new home.
At first they laid their eggs on the coop floor, which was annoying because we went to so much trouble building the nest box.
It took a few weeks but eventually they figured out where to lay their eggs and they now use the nest box regularly. I think the problem was that they weren't super comfortable with the new coop situation at first and wanted to lay under the window in the darkest place. But over time, as they became more relaxed in their new home, they grew to appreciate the comforts of the nest box. That was a huge relief because my next step would have been to add curtains to the nest boxes and I really didn't want to have to do that (they sound like a pain to keep clean).
We moved the chickens into their new coop over the summer so at first we left the front window opening bare. But in the fall we built a yakisugi window frame (pictured above) and screwed a sheet of plexiglass to it. This isn't the fanciest window. We didn't have a table saw so it was hard for us to do something more complicated. It's hinged at the top so in the summer we can prop it open and allow for airflow into the coop. The frame is also sized larger than the opening in the door to try to limit drafts when it’s closed in the winter. It's worked well so far.
At that time we also screwed in another piece of yakisugi on top of the nest box. This covers up the "ledge" at the top of the nest box I wrote about earlier. It's not the most elegant solution but it works.
Even though we only have three chickens, I decided to add a second perch with some 2x4 wood we had leftover from the build. The second perch is roughly the same height as the first and is 14'' further back in the coop. That gives the birds space to jump up and down, but the perches are still close enough that they can jump between them. I've found that that's what they really like to do with the second perch: They don't sleep on it but at bedtime they jump back and forth between the two perches. They do the same thing when they're cooped up on cold, snowy days. It looks like they're having fun and the extra perch adds some additional "hangout" space.
The chickens have now lived in the coop for six months and we've been really pleased with the design. There's not much I'd change, apart from a few construction aspects that aren't done entirely perfectly (e.g., I screwed in the front window a bit crooked and it still bothers me...) and possibly the size of the trap door exit.
The coop survived a near catastrophe when a giant limb came down during a recent storm. Some branches fell on the coop but thankfully we'd built it like a tank and it wasn't any worse for wear. Phew!!
We're not the only ones pleased with the coop. The chickens seem to be really happy with their new home as well.
If you have any questions or would like a copy of the Excel file with the coop design, feel free to email me at yakisugi.coop [at] gmail [dot] com. I'd also love to hear from you if you use some of our design elements in your coop. Send photos!
Thanks for reading!
- Katie
