Build a DIY wooden henhouse

It is increasingly rare to see chickens – usually laying hens or ornamental breeds – wandering around gardens. Chickens are active and social animals: they live in flocks and spend most of the day scratching around, foraging for food (insects, seeds, shoots, grass etc.) and passing the time.

A chicken coop should therefore be designed in such a way as to encourage the natural behaviour of the hens: not only scratching around, but also taking sand baths (or dust baths) and laying eggs. Not being able to express their natural instincts freely causes the animals stress, which manifests itself in aggressive dynamics between individuals and reduced egg production. In this article we will find out how to make a DIY henhouse that takes all these considerations into account.

Designing a DIY henhouse

When talking about chicken coops, even self-built ones, it’s important to make a distinction between:

• The henhouse itself, meaning a covered shelter, protected from predators and bad weather, which is shut at night.

• The coop or aviary, i.e., an external enclosure adjoining the henhouse, protected by wire mesh at least 1.10 m high and closed off at the top. It protects the chickens and the henhouse from predators (foxes, weasels, birds of prey, dogs, cats, etc.), animals that are fond of eggs (such as mice and hedgehogs) and species that carry diseases (such as wild birds, in the case of avian influenza).

• The yard or paddock, that is, a large open area where the chickens can search for food, move around, take sand baths, and so on. It is encircled by mesh about 1.80 m high that is buried in the ground along the perimeter, to keep out poultry and egg predators, prevent the chickens from escaping and safeguard the vegetable patch.

Even the most basic henhouses should offer a variety of spaces with well-defined functions, such as for resting and sleeping, eating and drinking, laying eggs and scratching around. By contrast, the coop and yard must be environments that offer plenty of natural and artificial stimuli, with shaded areas and places to rest and hide (branches, perches, trees, bushes, etc.). The animals must be slowly acclimatised to use the different spaces correctly.

What should be inside your DIY henhouse? Raised perches on which the hens can roost (calculate about 20 cm of perching space per bird); a feeder and drinker with fresh food and clean water; and one or more individual nesting boxes (at least one for every 7 birds) or a collective nest for laying eggs. The henhouse floor must be spread with a layer of litter for scratching: it should be deep, dry, clean and regularly changed (the birds' droppings or chicken manure, once left to mature and compost, makes an excellent fertiliser for vegetable patches and plants).

Suitable materials for the henhouse bedding include straw, untreated wood shavings and sand. Bare earth makes a good litter for the coop: however, it is important that there is no stagnant water or muddy puddles outside the henhouse. For your DIY henhouse, plan for an air recirculation system to eliminate moisture, which is not healthy for chickens: a small window is fine for this purpose, as long as it doesn’t expose them to drafts.

Where should you situate your DIY henhouse? In a dry, sunny place where the openings are exposed to natural light, and that is also protected from heat and cold, and sheltered from strong winds if the area is windy. It shouldn’t be too close to your home (due to the odour and noise), nor too far away from it (for reasons of practicality and in order to deter predators).

How about regulations governing DIY chicken coops? These relate to two aspects: health and building works. From a health point of view, a back-garden poultry farm for own consumption must be registered in the national livestock or poultry register. Here in Italy, that is done through the veterinary service of the local health authority. This applies even if you keep a single hen: however, consider that it is not advisable to keep just one; rather, rear a minimum of three birds (remember, we mentioned that hens live in flocks). Among other things, registration helps to control the spread of diseases that can be transmitted from animals to humans, such as avian flu.

As for the structure of your DIY henhouse and its surrounding enclosure, municipal hygiene regulations may prescribe specific rules – to be checked with your local authority – regarding the structure, distances from neighbouring properties, and other issues of environmental compatibility and coexistence. Furthermore, if the henhouse is made of wood and therefore does not require any masonry work (for the walls, flooring, etc.), it does not need a building permit from the local authority.

How to build a DIY wooden henhouse

Let's now focus on building your DIY henhouse. The material that we recommend using for the henhouse is wood: it’s economical, insulates well against cold and heat (the optimal internal temperature is around 13-24°C) and is quite easy to keep clean. In addition to being washable, it is important that the selected material is non-toxic and does not have sharp edges, protrusions or other features that could injure the birds.

The measurements and quantities of material needed depend on the size of the henhouse and the type of design. The right dimensions for your DIY wooden henhouse and enclosure will vary depending on the size of the hens, their breed and how many you have. Also bear in mind that overcrowding is one of the factors that can trigger stress in these farmyard animals.

We suggest a DIY henhouse for 4–5 birds, which is more than enough for an average family. For medium-lightweight breeds of laying hens – such as the widespread Ancona and Leghorn varieties – 1 m2 is sufficient, but it can be more spacious, around 2 m2 or more. Outside the henhouse, plan for a coop/aviary, calculating around 2 m2 of space per animal and, if the size of your garden permits, at least 10 m2 of yard space per chicken, which should be divided up and used in rotation so that the grass has a chance to grow back.

You can use reclaimed wood, for example by dismantling pallets with a pry bar and hammer or, if you want to do it more quickly, by sawing off the ends of the pallet boards with a chainsaw, reciprocating saw or handsaw. Choose pallets in good condition and, before dismantling them, use water pressure to remove the bulk of the dirt: go over them with a high-pressure washer or at least with the jet of a water hose. After wetting them, we also recommend scrubbing them with a sponge and a solution of water, liquid soap and bleach, then rinsing them and letting them dry in the sun.

Also, if you have a chainsaw and a portable chainsaw mill, you can cut a log into boards to use for building your henhouse: this is a job that should be done in advance, because after the boards are cut they must be seasoned.

Let's assume you are building a DIY wooden henhouse which has a base measuring approximately 2x1 m (length x width) and is equipped with a ventilation window, a pop-hole (the small hatch where the hens get in and out) and a service door (to let all the hens out into the yard so you can carry out cleaning, maintenance or egg collection). Adjacent to the henhouse, plan for a coop that is accessible via the pop-hole. The materials and equipment you will need are:

• Wooden joists for the base, i.e. the floor (a cross-section of 7x15 cm is fine).

• Wooden planks to cover the floor of your DIY henhouse.

• Square-section wooden beams, both for the load-bearing frame and roof structure of the henhouse, and to use as posts and cross-beams for the perimeter of the coop (7x7 cm cross-section will do).

• Wooden battens for the door frame and for the frame and counterframe of the ventilation window.

• Wooden planks to cover the walls of the chicken coop: for this purpose you can use reclaimed pallet boards.

• Exterior OSB panels for single-pitched roofs and for the door and window sashes.

• Hardware: screws, hinges and latches.

• Plus: tar to protect wooden elements in contact with the ground and/or buried in the ground, wood stain for the other wooden components of your DIY henhouse, tightly woven chicken wire for the coop and the ventilation window, and corrugated bitumen sheets for the roof.

In addition to a chainsaw and protective clothing, to build the henhouse you will need at least a screwdriver, staple gun, hammer, tape measure, spirit level, paintbrush and stepladder. If you are in the countryside and the distances to travel are longer, with a transporter you can haul materials and equipment to the site effortlessly.

DIY wooden henhouse step by step

Start setting up the site for your DIY wooden henhouse by preparing the work area:

• • Clear the area of vegetation with a garden tractor, lawnmower, brushcutter or wheeled brushcutter as appropriate (by the way, here you can find a comparison between wheeled brushcutters, garden tractors and lawnmowers).

  • Level the surface, adding backfill materials if necessary.

• Lay the wooden base of the henhouse:

  • Place the joists flat, either directly on the ground or on a concrete slab or specially prepared layer of bricks.

  • Fasten the floorboards to the joists.

• Assemble the load-bearing frame of the walls, measuring 2 m long, which will be the front and back of the henhouse:

  • For each wall, join 2 vertical and 2 horizontal beams into a rectangle, together with a third intermediate vertical element to stiffen the whole structure: the back wall will be lower than the front, to create the slope for the single-pitched roof (the wall heights can be approximately 1.70 m and 1.90 m respectively).

  • Screw the load-bearing structure to the bottom of the henhouse.

  • Attach the square beams to the top of the wall frames, so as to form the roof framework that will support the roof panels.

• Determine the position of the openings of your wooden henhouse by building the counterframes:

  • Screw the counterframe battens to the load-bearing structure of the front wall, so as to delimit the openings of the ventilation window and of the pop-hole providing access between the henhouse and coop.

  • Fasten the battens for the service door along a side wall, somewhere between the front and back frames.

• Assemble the coop structure adjoining the front wall of the henhouse:

  • Drive two corner posts and a third middle post into the ground.

  • Attach cross-beams to the top of the coop, to support the chicken wire.

  • Once you have completed the steps for your chicken coop described below, finish off the coop by encircling it on all sides with the wire mesh, which must be secured to the structure using a staple gun.

• Cover the walls of your DIY henhouse by securing wooden planks to the load-bearing frame, whilst leaving the openings uncovered.

• Create the doors and window of the henhouse:

  • Make the sashes for the service door, pop-hole and ventilation window shutter out of an OSB panel.

  • Install the service door and pop-hole by fixing hinges and latches respectively.

  • To close the ventilation window, cut a piece of thick wire mesh, secure it to the wall with a frame made of battens, and finally fit the window shutter with hinges and a latch.

• Install the roof of your DIY wooden henhouse:

  • Screw the OSB panels to the roof framework.

  • Cover the roof with corrugated bitumen roofing sheets, securing them to the OSB panels; alternatively, cover the panels with self-adhesive waterproof membrane.

The internal layout of the wooden henhouse should include perches and a couple of shelves on which to place the individual nestboxes lined with straw. Alternatively, you can build a collective nest outside, fixed to a wall of the henhouse and with an opening roof so that you can collect the eggs.

A henhouse is a convenient solution if you want to have fresh eggs every day (or most days) and a good source of manure. Rearing chickens is an advanced step towards food self-sufficiency, compared with simpler approaches such as growing a vegetable patch or even fruit trees. Are you new to fruit and vegetable growing? Here you will find an overview of how to grow a vegetable patch, divide the vegetable patch into beds, grow an orchard and make yourself a DIY compost bin.

Self-sufficiency also means minimising waste and optimising resources: the countryside, vegetable patch and garden provide fuel for heating the home without gas, including through the use of DIY pellets.