Building Chicken Coops For Dummies

Todd Brock, David Zook, Robert T. Ludlow

• Publisher: For Dummies
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781119543886
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Animal Husbandry
• Index: Technology & Engineering

Building Chicken Coops For Dummies (9781119543923) was previously published as Building Chicken Coops For Dummies (9780470598962). While this version features a new Dummies cover and design, the content is the same as the prior release and should not be considered a new or updated product.

As the popularity of urban homesteading and sustainable living increases, it's no wonder you're in need of trusted, practical guidance on how to properly house the chickens you're planning (or have already begun) to keep. Building Chicken Coops For Dummies gives you the information you need to build the most cost-efficient, safe, and easy-on-the-eye enclosures for your backyard flock.

This practical guide gives you easy-to-follow and customizable plans for building the backyard chicken coop that works best for you. You'll get the basic construction know-how and key information you need to design and build a coop tailored to your flock, whether you live in a small city loft, a suburban backyard, or a small rural farm.

• Includes detailed material lists, instructions, and schematic plans for building a host of different chicken coops
• Step-by-step guidance on how to build a coop—or design your own
• Accessible for every level of reader

Whether you're just beginning to gain an interest in a back-to-basics lifestyle or looking to add more attractive and efficient coops to your current flock's digs, Building Chicken Coops For Dummies gives you everything you need to build a winning coop!

Part 1

All Cooped Up

IN THIS PART …

These chapters lay the groundwork for you to construct your own chicken coop.

Chapter 1 provides a quick overview of the entire book.

In Chapter 2, we deal with logistical issues like what your coop needs to have and where it should go, and we also look at some popular coop styles.

Use Chapter 3 as a guide to the various tools you need to build your coop.

As you wade through the various building materials that are available, consult Chapter 4 for our thoughts on what’s best.

Finally, Chapter 5 puts it all together by walking you through the carpentry skills you have to perform to make your coop a reality.

Chapter 1

Flocking to Your Own Chicken Coop

IN THIS CHAPTER

Thinking through coop basics

Looking at tools and building materials

Constructing your coop step-by-step

Deciding on a coop style

“Regard it as just as desirable to build a chicken house as to build a cathedral.” A lovely sentiment? Yes. A bit overly dramatic? Perhaps at first glance, until you consider who said it. That quote is attributed to none other than Frank Lloyd Wright, the most famous and celebrated architect in American history. Thinking about a “chicken house” a little differently now?

You obviously take the idea of a chicken coop more seriously than most, or you wouldn’t have picked up this book. While we’ve packed the chapters that follow with everything you need to know about how to design and construct your own coop, this chapter serves as your crash course in what you need to know to build a chicken house that even Frank Lloyd Wright would be proud of.

Understanding the Basics of Housing

A chicken coop is, at its most basic and fundamental, a shelter for your birds. It can be Spartan in its simplicity, a modest or even crude structure that serves its intended purpose but will never make the cover of Better Coops and Gardens. Or it can be grand and elaborate, intricately designed, and built from the finest materials, featuring all the bells and whistles imaginable.

While the aesthetics may mean a great deal to you and your family as you embark on your coop-building adventure, the chickens, quite frankly, couldn’t give a cluck. To your birds, a new chicken coop needs only to have a few select things going for it. These basics are explored more in-depth in Chapter 2 and throughout this book, but here’s a quick list of what you need to consider before you start building a coop or settle on a specific design:

• Shelter: Even wild chickens take cover when the weather turns nasty. If you’re going to keep chickens in your suburban backyard, you have to give them a place where they can find shelter from rain, wind, and cold.
• Protection: Humans aren’t the only carnivores who enjoy a finger-lickin’ good chicken dinner every now and again. A primary requirement of any coop is that it effectively offers protection from predators.
• Space: We say it often in this book because it’s a golden rule to always keep in mind: Your coop should provide 2 to 4 square feet of floor space for each bird you keep.
• Lighting: Chickens need around 14 hours of sunlight every day. They aren’t always able to get all of it outdoors. Whether it’s via a window, a door, or a skylight, your coop needs to allow some light inside.
• Ventilation: Chickens poop. Often. Wherever they happen to be when nature calls. The coop will get stinky. You can’t prevent that, but you must exhaust that ammonia-saturated air for the health of you and your birds.
• Cleanliness: Once again, chickens poop. The coop will get messy. You need to think through how you, their caretaker, will take care of that dirty job on a regular basis.

Looking at the Gear You’ll Need

We’ll be honest: You don’t have to construct your own coop. Lots of great companies are out there who will deliver one in any size you need, ready for your flock to move into straight off the truck. Or you can easily hire a local builder, contractor, or handyman to erect one for you. The only tool you need for these options is a major credit card.

But many chicken owners love the challenge, the considerable cost savings, and the hands-on involvement of building their own coop. (We’re guessing that at least one of these things appeals to you, too, or you wouldn’t be reading this book.)

Building your own chicken coop may not be as easy as placing an order for a prefab unit, but it’s not as difficult as you probably think, either. You don’t necessarily need a garage full of professional-grade specialty gear (although a few strategically-chosen power tools can make the work easier, quicker, and more fun). We dive into tools in Chapter 3, but here’s a brief checklist of the stuff you really need to have if you want to build your own chicken coop:

• Safety gear: Gloves, goggles, earplugs, and a tool belt keep you in the backyard building a coop and raising chickens instead of racing to the emergency room.
• Garden tools: If your coop site is currently occupied by a flower bed or a years-old pile of yard debris, you’ll need to do some clearing. A rake and a shovel should suffice in most instances. A mattock (which we cover in more detail in Chapter 3) can chop through buried tree roots.
• Tape measure and pencil: Without these essential items, you’re just guessing at how long a piece of lumber is or where you need to cut it.
• Saw: Pick your poison — from circular saws to jigsaws, reciprocating saws to table saws, miter saws to handsaws, there are dozens of ways to cut a piece of wood. You’d better have at least one that you feel completely comfortable and fairly adept with.
• Tools for putting in posts: You may need to dig a few postholes, either for anchoring timber posts that support an elevated walk-in coop or for the fence posts that define your coop’s chicken run. If postholes are in your future, have a posthole digger or a power auger at the ready. (You’ll probably also need a wheelbarrow and a long-handled tool like a shovel for mixing up and pouring concrete.)
• Hammer: The most basic tool of them all is still the one that most coop-builders use most often. Find one you’ll be able to swing all day long (but also consider a pneumatic nail gun!).
• Drill: Whether you use it to drive screws or to bore small pilot holes, a powerful drill (preferably with multiple torque settings) is often the only tool that can do the job at hand.
• Level and square: These tools are used in conjunction with one another as you build, to make sure that all your boards and cuts are straight.
• Tools for working with wire: Wire mesh is used to enclose a chicken run or, sometimes, to cover gaps on the coop itself. A sturdy pair of tin snips will help you cut the mesh to whatever size and shape you need.
• Miscellaneous tools: In addition to the basics already listed, there’s a good chance you’ll also find a need for things like a utility knife, a pair of sawhorses, and a screwdriver.

Choosing Coop Materials

Chicken owners, by nature, seem to be scroungers, savers, and scavengers. Chicken coops, as a result, are often constructed out of a potpourri of materials — old wooden pallets broken down into individual boards, leftover plywood from a past renovation, mismatched paint from half-empty cans in the basement, spare parts and pieces accumulated over time. These recycled and repurposed one-of-a-kind coops lend each henhouse an improvised, personal touch and are part of what makes raising backyard chickens such a fascinating hobby for so many.

But if you’re constructing a coop from scratch, without the benefit of a pre-existing pile of building materials, you have some decisions to make. Chapter 4 takes a long, hard look at the different options you’ll encounter at the lumberyard, building supply center, or neighborhood hardware store. In the meantime, refer to this short list of the basic materials you’ll need to obtain in order to craft a coop of your own:

• Board lumber: The framework of almost every coop we’ve ever seen is made up of board lumber. The most common cut is the 2x4, but the slightly smaller 2x3 can help you shave per-board costs and cut down on the coop’s overall bulk and weight. You may need 2x6s for things like floor joists. If you’re elevating your coop off the ground, 4x4s make good corner posts. And thin boards like ...