Making It: Radical Home Ec for a Post-Consumer World (39 page)

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Build a Chicken Coop

If you’re thinking about raising a few hens in your backyard, we encourage you to go for it. Once you taste your first homegrown egg, you’ll never want to buy eggs at the store again. Chickens provide lots of good manure for your compost pile, and, if you direct their efforts, they’ll clear your garden of weeds and bugs. Beyond these practical advantages, they bring life and color to the garden and draw you into it more often.

There’s something hypnotic about the way chickens move and the soft sounds they make when content. Many a time, we step out in the yard on an errand and end up talking to the hens, or just standing there, watching them, caught in their spell.

However, we don’t want to paint too rosy a picture of poultry keeping. It is a significant responsibility. Chickens require daily care and an initial investment in equipment and housing to keep them healthy and safe. The biggest investment you’ll make is in the construction of their coop. Time spent planning and building a sturdy, well-designed coop pays off in the long run. The right coop for you is going to depend on a lot of factors, including the size of your flock, the climate you live in, and the specifics of your yard. There is no one-size-fits-all solution. We’ll lay out some general guidelines and show you an idealized version of our coop, complete with all the additions we’d make if we had to do it over again. We hope this might become a template for your own design.

CHICKEN COOP GUIDELINES

CHICKENS NEED A PLACE TO ROOST AT NIGHT.
The house they sleep in is called the henhouse. The word
coop
refers to the henhouse and outdoor run combined. The henhouse should be darkish, waterproof, and predator proof. The materials it’s constructed of depend on your climate. In cold climates, insulate the walls of the house. Just make sure that the insulation isn’t exposed to the chickens, because they will eat it. In milder climates, the walls of the house can be constructed out of plywood or sheet metal. All henhouses should be windproof, too. Chickens can keep themselves warm, but drafts and leaks interfere with their ability to do so. Most important, the house should be built sturdy enough that predatory critters cannot dig or pry their way in at night. Pay close attention to the doors and floors. Persistent predators can pull up weak siding or plywood and pull off poorly attached wire mesh. Raccoons can even manipulate latches.

It’s a good idea to make the house human friendly, too, for easy cleaning. Large houses should be fitted with a proper door so you can walk in and out without banging your head. Small houses are most convenient if they’re elevated to hip height and designed so that one wall swings open, allowing you to reach inside easily.

THE HENHOUSE DOES NOT HAVE TO BE LARGE.
Chickens never hang out in their house during daylight hours. They use the house for two main purposes, sleeping and laying eggs. When they’re awake, they want to be outside. This means the house doesn’t have to be big. The dimensions of the coop depend on the size of the flock. They sleep (roost) off the ground, lined up on a pole. Each hen needs about 1 foot of roosting space. This measurement determines the dimensions of the house. A flock of four hens would therefore need a 4-foot pole to roost on. The roosting pole stretches from wall to wall inside the house, meaning that a house intended for four hens would be 4 feet wide at minimum.

THE ROOSTING POLE
should be rounded, measure 2 inches in diameter to accommodate a full-grown chicken of standard size, and be made of wood for good traction. You could use a rod intended for a closet or a length of tree branch. If you’re raising bantam hens, they need a 1-inch-diameter perch. It should be mounted approximately 1 to 2 feet off the floor of the house. They can flap up to higher perches, but we believe lower perches minimize the risk of foot injuries during the dismount. Our ladies are not exactly svelte, and they land with a thump. Position the bar 1 ½to 2 feet away from the nearest wall so they have plenty of elbow room for landing and squabbling. If you’re raising bantams, the bar can be closer to the wall.

A NESTING BOX
gives hens somewhere safe to lay their eggs. If you don’t provide one, they’ll find their own spots, and you’ll enjoy daily Easter egg hunts. They like to lay somewhere dark, snug, and out of sight of predators. Locating the nesting box inside the house gives them the security they crave, and making the box just large enough to fit a hen makes it extra appealing. A box measuring 12 x 12 x 12 inches is about the minimum size necessary for a regular hen. Allow one box for every four hens. They like to share, so if you build more than that, you’ll find some going unused.

The nesting box could be as simple as a wooden crate backed into the corner of the house. Or, more ambitiously, it could be built into the wall so that it projects outside of the house. In this case it would be fitted with a hinged roof to allow easy access to the eggs. It’s a good idea to include a raised lip on the open side of the box to help keep the nesting material inside. If the box is located inside the coop (rather than projecting out), fitting it with a steeply canted roof will dissuade the chickens from roosting on top of it and covering it with droppings Always fill the nesting box with bedding material to cushion the eggs and encourage the chickens to nest there. We prefer fluffy wood shaving to straw, and the hens seem to prefer it as well.

AN ATTACHED RUN
allows the chickens to go in and out of the house at will. The run is a screened structure that either projects off the front of the house or envelopes the entire house. It keeps the chickens contained while outdoors, which protects them from predators and protects your garden from the chickens. They love to free range, but if your yard is small and your crops unprotected, they can make short work of your vegetable patch. The run should always be on dirt, not concrete, because they need to dust themselves in dirt for their health. They also entertain themselves by scratching and digging holes. A chicken raised on wire or concrete is an unhappy chicken. Put a thick layer of straw in the run to absorb their waste and give them more material to scratch around in. It’s more hygienic, and it smells and looks better than bare soil.

The size of the run depends on how many birds you have and how they spend their days. If they are allowed to free range, the run can be smaller, just enough space to contain them safely when you’re not around to let them out. If they’re going to spend all of their time in the run, it should be bigger. Exactly how big is your call. In our opinion, the bigger the better. The more room the birds have, the less likely they are to pick on one another—or at least the picked-upon hens have somewhere to run. The coop will also be cleaner and healthier if they’re not crowded. In cases where the hens never leave the run, we’d allow a minimum of 12 square feet per hen.

THE RUN SHOULD HAVE A ROOF
to shelter the chickens from rain, shade them from intense sun, and protect them from hawks. The most minimal roof would be avian netting overlaid by a tarp for shade. The easiest roof to build would be a shed-style roof designed to direct rain away from the coop.

THE RUN SHOULD BE PREDATOR PROOF.
Chicken predators include dogs, raccoons, possums, skunks, snakes, foxes, coyotes, weasels, rats, owls, and hawks. The run should be screened in with ½-inch hardware cloth, not chicken wire, to keep all these critters at bay. Hardware cloth is not cloth but galvanized metal material made up of ½-inch squares. Chicken wire doesn’t protect chickens. Raccoons, the most persistent chicken predators of all, can reach through chicken wire, grab a chicken, and eat it by the mouthful right through the wire. Hardware cloth should be firmly attached to support posts with U-shaped galvanized poultry staples, which are nailed in. Don’t use staples from a staple gun, because those rust and can be pried up. The hardware cloth should also be sunk beneath the soil by at least a foot, so nothing can dig its way into the run.

ADD STORAGE SPACE TO THE RUN.
Allow a couple of extra feet behind the henhouse to stack hay bales and store bins of feed or tools. It looks tidy, and it’s more convenient than storing these things elsewhere. If supplies are under the coop’s roof, it saves you from scrambling around to cover everything with a tarp each time it rains.

A
Henhouse

B
Nesting box with outside access, hinged and fitted with a lock

C
Door fitted with a raccoon-proof lock

D
Separate storage area, open to the outside or also fitted with a door. The wall between the coop and storage area can be solid or made of hardware cloth.

E
Walls covered with ½-inch hardware cloth, not chicken wire

F
Roof for shade and protection from the rain, tilted to shed water off the back

THE HOUSE DOESN’T HAVE TO BE HEATED.
Hens are fairly cold hardy. They’ve got lots of feathers, and they cuddle together to keep warm at night. Roosting off the ground protects them from the cold, as well. Line the house with lots of straw during the winter months to provide extra insulation. In general, big chickens have more body mass to protect them from the cold than miniature and thin-bodied breeds. If you live somewhere with especially bitter winters, you should consider keeping breeds noted for their cold hardiness. One factor in cold heartiness is comb size. Chicken combs and wattles are vulnerable to frostbite. In cold places, the smaller the comb the better. No matter what kind of chickens you keep, one of the biggest concerns in cold weather is keeping their water from freezing. Chickens need constant access to clean water for good health. If you’re not wild about the prospect of making regular trips to the coop to break the ice in their water dish, invest in a heated poultry waterer.

HEAT IS ACTUALLY MORE DANGEROUS THAN COLD.
When chickens are hot, they stand around with their wings slightly spread, and they pant like dogs. This is one way they regulate their temperature. When the mercury hits 100°F (less if it’s humid), chickens start expiring unless they have a cool retreat. During daytime hours, they must have access to shade and soil in the run. They’ll find the shadiest spot they can and dig holes into the cool dirt. If the coop and run area aren’t shaded naturally, stretch a tarp over a portion of it for summer months. Give them lots of extra water when it’s hot—they drink copiously to keep themselves cool. If you live where sweltering heat is the rule rather than the exception, consider keeping bantams or thin-bodied breeds. They regulate heat better than “big girls.” On the hottest days, we use a hose with a sprayer set to a fine sprinkle to dampen the run—and the chickens.

While shade is a necessity in the summer, it’s not wise to site the chicken coop in a perennially shady area. It’s unhealthy for the chickens to live in constantly dank conditions. Sunlight is a good thing. Sunshine dries out soggy litter and keeps the run more hygienic. The ladies enjoy basking in the sun, too. The ideal location for the coop would be a spot that received sun for part of the day but that was protected by some shade in the summer. Our coop is under a pair of deciduous trees. They shade the coop on summer afternoons, but in the winter, their bare branches allow sunlight all day.

INSIDE THE HENHOUSE, GOOD VENTILATION IS CRITICAL,
no matter what the climate or season. Henhouses are usually small, the sleeping quarters tight. The combination of bedding and dander makes the air dusty, and their droppings release ammonia as they dry. Good ventilation is necessary to make sure chickens don’t develop respiratory infections from sleeping in bad air. The henhouse should have adjustable vents in the wall to allow for healthy airflow and to let heat escape. You can also drill a row of ½-inch holes near the roofline to improve ventilation. If you put one set of holes on the north side of the house and another on the south side, you’d set up a cross breeze. In the winter, you could screw a board over the north-facing holes to keep the house warmer. Staple ½-inch mesh over the holes to keep rats out.

GENERAL TIPS FOR CHICKEN KEEPING

YOU CAN BUY CHICKS, BUT PULLETS ARE EASIER.
Most people get chicks from feed stores or via mail order. If you buy chicks, you have to keep them indoors in a heated cardboard box (a brooder) until they grow their adult feathers, because they’re sensitive to cold. While it can be fun to play chick nanny for several weeks, they do require a lot of attention. If you don’t have the time or inclination, buy pullets (young hens) at a poultry show. Keep an eye out for shows in your area and go early in the day for the best selection. The great thing about buying from professional breeders is that they really care about the health of their stock. You’ll go home with high-quality chickens that are “coop ready” and just about old enough to start laying eggs.