Building a custom chicken enclosure that looks great, meets your needs, and keeps your chickens comfortable is not as hard as it sounds! In fact, if you have the right tools, you can build something that is not only practical but also a great aesthetic addition to any yard.
We’ve gathered the top 5 tips to help you design a custom chicken enclosure.
Tip 1 – Go with a Pre-Made Plan
We all like custom designs, but sometimes they’re not the best way to go. If you’re new to the building world, you might consider going with a pre-made plan. These plans have all of the instructions you need as well as measurements to ensure that your chicken enclosure is up to par for your chickens! You can find some great plans for any size yard right here. If these don’t meet what you’re looking for, you can always scour the internet for other options.
Trust us when we say that there is a pre-made chicken enclosure plan for you out there! You’ve just got to find it!
Tip 2 – Don’t Get Too Fancy
You will find custom designs for chicken enclosures all over the internet that look like the Taj Mahal for chickens, but you don’t really need something like that. You want something that looks nice and is sturdy, but the truth is you don’t need anything super fancy. Remember that chickens will be roaming free all around the chicken enclosure, which means you will have food and poop all over the floor of the place within minutes.
Keep the structure looking nice on the outside. Let the chickens enjoy the inside. And meet in the middle when it comes to “decorating” the chicken enclosure! The chickens won’t care what color you paint it or how many reinforcements you use to ensure it’s sturdy enough. They’ll just be happy for a place to stay!
Tip 3 – Get Creative and Recycle!
Reusing materials is a great way to incorporate being environment-friendly into your new chicken enclosure. You’re already doing a great thing for Mother Nature, why not add on to it with your upcycled chicken enclosure?
When you use recycled materials like pallets, tires, old windows, and other recycled wood can be great for your new chicken enclosure. It is wise to inspect any type of wood you want to recycle, however, to make sure it doesn’t have any rotting issues or termite damage. This could end up costing you more money to fix than you spent on the original structure.
Also, beginners to the building world might not find recycled materials the easiest to work with. They do require some ingenuity and patience, especially if they’re not the right size to begin with or need extra love to meet the building requirements. Recycling is an awesome way to save some money and be nice to the earth, but keep the words to the wise in mind.
Tip 4 – Build the Right Sized Chicken Enclosure
This one might sound kind of funny to you because it looks like a no brainer. However, the truth is that many people don’t know what the proper size enclosure truly is for the number of chickens they want to have.
The rule of thumb is to have at least 3-4 feet of space per chicken you have. However, if the chickens will be in the enclosure 100% of the time without outside time, you will need to up that space to at least 5-10 feet of space per chicken.
Leave Some Headroom
Keep in mind the size of the chicken you will have. Larger birds need to have more space and building upwards is a great way to give them more room! Ramps and perches are great ways to keep your chickens entertained and exercised while living in their custom chicken enclosure.
When in doubt, give a little bit more space! If you have the room, go for it! No chicken ever complained from having too much space.
Tip 5 – Give Careful Consideration to Your Nesting Boxes
The bread and butter of any chicken coop is the hen. Why? Because they’re the ones who lay the eggs, you are (most likely) raising chickens for. Without those eggs, your efforts to keep chickens at your home might not be worth the trouble.
Therefore, when you’re building your chicken enclosure, be sure to give special attention to the nesting boxes. The hens will use this box to lay their eggs and keep them warm until they’re ready for the real world.
Predict More Space
Going for one nesting box per 4-5 hens is wise. This is a minimum, so if you can build more nesting boxes, do it! You also want to make sure that you make them off of the ground (2 feet will be great) so that they will actually be used. Hens like to feel like their eggs are safe from harm and putting them off the ground a bit helps them feel that way.
And because you’ll most likely be gathering the eggs before they hatch into little chicks, give yourself an easy location to get the eggs from outside of the enclosure rather than going inside. Your custom chicken enclosure may be too small to go inside of, which means finding an access door from the outside is crucial.
Bonus Tip 6 – Make It Easy on Yourself
Building a chicken enclosure that isn’t easy to clean or maintain is not exactly useful. There will be live animals roaming in and out of the pen all day and night, which means chicken poop and dropped food will cover the floor within hours. Building a chicken enclosure that isn’t easy to clean or maintain will cause more frustration than good in the long run.
The best thing you can do is build a full-sized door for yourself so that entering and exiting is a breeze. You can go in, take care of business, and go back out without much of a hassle at all. For chicken enclosures that will stay in one spot, this is an easy fix. If you have a mobile chicken enclosure, be sure to give yourself floor trays that can be pulled out and dump/rinsed off as well as easy access to the eggs and chickens if/when needed.