Building the chicken coop has been the most labor intensive part of owning chickens. There are many great chicken coop options available, and it is hard to make a choice. Whatever you do, make sure you have a plan for the chicken coop BEFORE you buy baby chicks. (We learned this the hard way.) The coop is arguably the most important piece of equipment for protecting your chickens from predators and the elements. This is not the place to cut corners or cheap out.
Because we will be moving so often, we needed to construct a coop that we could take with us.
Design Requirements
These are the design requirements we had when making our mobile chicken coop:
- Must have wheels so one person can move it around the yard
- Made from easily sourced materials
- Provides adequate ventilation for extreme heat and cold
- Able to keep out common predators, such as racoons
- Must stay dry inside during rain
- Must be easy to clean
- Must have easy access to a nesting box
- Must fit in the bed of a Nissan Frontier (54 inches long, 43 inches wide)
- Must be light enough to be lifted over the air conditioning unit to place in our backyard
Choosing a Coop Design
After many weeks of research and numerous ideas for a coop design, we settled on a design similar to the Chickshaw from Justin Rhodes. While I did not use his exact design plan, I highly recommend you check out his work. He makes great stuff and is a big inspiration for us. He also offers his previous versions for free on his website. Another source we used to build the coop was Woodworking McDaniel’s YouTube video covering his version of the Chickshaw.
The coop needed to be light enough to be picked up by two people and rolled by one person. This would enable my wife to move the coop around the backyard to new ground by herself, and allow us to lift it into the back of the truck when we move. I took every effort to reduce weight as much as possible while still maintaining structural integrity.
Coop Features
The Chickshaw Justin Rhodes designed features a roof that lifts using a hinge, but I found it too heavy. The coop features hardware cloth mesh that makes up the floor and sides. This allows the chicken poop to fall through the floor to keep a cleaner coop. The hardware cloth on the sides enable air to flow through the coop and offers protection from predators.
There are two roosting bars on the floor for the chickens to sleep on. Another roosting bar is placed high for a nesting box to sit between the roosting bar and the back wall. There are two doors on the coop. The one in the front allows the chickens to enter and leave. A smaller, higher up door in the back allows you to easily grab eggs out of the nesting box. Each door has a latch so predators cannot get in.
We made sure the coop is high enough off the ground that the chickens can go underneath for shade.
Designing the Coop
I modeled the chicken coop frame using Fusion 360, a free and powerful Computer Aided Design (CAD) software, to get an idea of what size and how much wood we would need to purchase. From the CAD model, I made a cut list of every piece of wood we would need.
| Label Number | Stock Size (inches) | Length (inches) | Width (inches) | Height (inches) | Quantity | Description |
| 1 | 2 x 4 | 36 | 3 | 1.5 | 12 | Vertical Boards used to make walls |
| 2 | 2 x 4 | 40 | 3 | 1.5 | 2 | Short side of the bottom frame |
| 3 | 2 x 4 | 51 | 3 | 1.5 | 2 | Long side of the bottom frame |
| 4 | 2 x 4 | 12 | 3 | 1.5 | 8 | Corner Braces (4) and Wheel Axle Holder (4) |
| 5 | 2 x 4 | 26.50 | 3 | 1.5 | 1 | Horizontal support on rear of coop for egg door |
| 6 | 2 x 4 | 37 | 3 | 1.5 | 2 | Bottom frame braces |
| 7 | 2 x 4 | 40 | 1.5 | 1.75 | 2 | Roof short side pieces |
| 8 | 2 x 4 | 51 | 1.5 | 1.75 | 3 | Roof long side pieces (2), Roosting bar (1) |
| 9 | 2 x 4 | 54 | 1.5 | 1.75 | 2 | Nesting bars on floor of coop |
| 10 | 2 x 4 | 19.75 | 1.5 | 1.75 | 2 | Vertical pieces for roosting bar |
| 11 | 2 x 4 | 43 | 1.5 | 1.75 | 2 | Diagonal support braces on coop walls |
| 12 | 4 x 4 | 11 | 3 | 3 | 2 | Feet for the floor to stand on |
The wood was purchased from the Home Depot. I cut each piece to size using my table saw. Halfway through building the frame, I realized that the coop was too wide to fit through our duplex gate that leads to the backyard. Lesson learned: Always measure the areas your item has to move through before you start building.
Building the Coop Frame
I began to attach everything together using 9×3-inch exterior screws. Any time two pieces of wood came to a joint, I used wood glue between them to ensure a strong connection, then screwed the wood together.
We built the floor and attached the ½-inch hardware using an electric staple gun with ½-inch staples. In hindsight, we should have used 1 inch hardware cloth for the floor because it allows more manure to fall through. The ½-inch wire is too fine and the poop gets stuck on top. We cut some of the wire to make bigger spaces for the poop to fall, but it would have been easier to start with the correct material.
Once I built the floor and attached the hardware cloth to it, I built the sides of the frame by using deck brackets to attach the 2x4s to the floor. After joining the sides and the floor using the deck brackets, I screwed the vertical 2x4s to the floor using more 3 inch decking screws drilled at an angle. These deck brackets were very sturdy and worked great, but cost far too much at $6 each. If we did it over again, we’d use cheaper L-shaped brackets.
After constructing the sides, I finished the frame off by adding the roof frame. The roof frame was made of 2x4s cut down the middle. I glued and screwed the pieces onto the top of the vertical 2x4s and called it good.
Securing the Coop
After finishing the frame, we began adding hardware cloth to the sides of the coop. I designed our coop to be 36 inches tall so the hardware cloth would cover the sides top to bottom to not allow predators to get in. We were originally going to just add hardware cloth to the parts of the coop not covered by galvanized sheet metal, but decided it would be better to wrap the wire all the way around the coop to ensure there were no gaps.
When we were done adding the hardware cloth, I secured the galvanized sheet metal to the sides of the coop using 1 5/8-inch sharp point lath screws. I painted the galvanized steel white to help reflect some of the sun’s heat during the summer.
Coop Wheels and Legs
After attaching the galvanized steel, I added the wheels onto the coop, using Marathon 20 inch Flat-Free Tires. I screwed another 2×4 to the floor and drilled a hole through it for the axle. I used a 5 8×6-inch bolt for each wheel axle and held the bolt in place using two hex nuts. These wheels are not the sturdiest, but they are good enough to move the coop a few feet at a time.
I added those logs onto the front of the coop by screwing them into the floor using a screw that goes diagonally through the legs.
Coop Doors
I cut a 29-inch wide by 15-inch tall hole in the galvanized steel to make room for the nesting box door. Then I cut out a 28-inch wide by 14-inch tall inch piece of ½-inch plywood to function as the nesting box door.
Finally, I made the front door to the coop, also out of ½-inch thick plywood. The door functions as a ramp, and it hinges up and latches at the top to lock the chickens in at night.
Project Complete
Overall, building the coop was a fun project. We learned a lot along the way, and hope this coop can serve our chickens for at least several years. Justin Rhodes said he could fit plenty more chickens in his mini Chickshaw, so we think we have room to expand from our five!
After we built the chicken coop, we set up a “mobile run” for them to run around and eat bugs outside. Click the link or the image below to find out how we did it.
Great explanation and details Ben. The design requirements make it easy to understand why you made certain decisions. It looks sturdy and moveable.
Now you’ll need a post on how to keep a chicken coop clean and not stinky for a move!