Build the Perfect Chicken Coop

Image Gallery iStockPhoto.com/Sue McDonald

Chickens are every bit as fun and easy to care for as dogs or cats, plus they provide a steady supply of fresh eggs. The biggest challenge is keeping the birds safe from predators and, at the same time, allowing them to enjoy a natural diet of grains, greens and insects.

Most poultry predators roam at night – raccoons, coyotes, owls and such. But hawks and some dogs have been known to attack free-ranging birds during the day, especially when there are no humans or guard dogs at home to chase them away. You could keep your birds safe inside a fully enclosed conventional coop, but then they wouldn’t be able to forage for their natural diet, which results in the best-tasting and most nutritious eggs. Portable electric mesh fencing can serve as daytime protection in some locations, but not against hawks. Plus, you’ll still need shelter for the hens to sleep in.

To make it easy for anyone to raise a few chickens on pasture, I set out to create a coop that would be secure, low-cost, easy to build, light enough to move easily and scaled to fit well even in small backyards. After working through several prototypes, this design meets all the criteria. It’s intended for three or four hens, costs only about $100 in materials and can be assembled in a few hours from standard welded wire fencing. A barn-style plastic doghouse serves as a henhouse that sits inside the wire pen. The pen and house combo is lightweight and easy to pull to a new location every few days, so you can keep your birds safe and still let them enjoy clean, fresh pasture (or set them over garden beds to help fertilize and control pests).

To make this portable mini-coop, head to your local hardware or farm store and get the following items:

• Barn-style doghouse: The larger the better, but be sure you get the 1-inch-by-2-inch-mesh wire fencing for the pen’s side walls (see below) in a height that’s at least as tall as the doghouse you choose.
• 1-inch-by-2-inch-mesh welded wire fencing, as tall as the doghouse – 38 feet is enough to make the sides and doors for one 3-foot-by-10-foot pen. This fencing is stiff enough to make sides that support the top and produce a sturdy rectangular wire pen.
• 25 feet of 2-inch-by-4-inch-mesh welded wire, 36 inches wide (or 48 inches for a wider pen – see Step 2); this is for the coop’s top and bottom panels. You could use 1-inch-by-2-inch mesh throughout, but the 2-inch-by-4-inch is sufficient, plus it’s lighter and less expensive.
• Two or three boxes of “hog rings” and the special pliers to pinch them closed. I discovered these nifty fasteners at a Tractor Supply Co. store. They are designed to be pierced into pigs’ noses to discourage them from rooting, but they’re perfect for quickly attaching the walls, top and bottom to form a lightweight all-wire (no wood!) pen. Aluminum J-clips used for constructing rabbit hutches will also work well – be sure to get the matching pliers.
• If you don’t already have wire cutters or a small bolt cutter, buy a tool that will let you easily cut the wire fencing.