From Ugly Old Shed to Trendy Chicken Coop

Many people have asked me why I decided to make most of two of the walls of my chicken coop nothing but hardware cloth. They express concern about the chickens being cold in the winter.

In thinking about how to house my chickens, I did a lot of reading and talking to people. It seems that in our area, at least, heat is more of a concern than cold in terms of threat to a chicken's health. Especially in a metal shed, the danger was that the birds would overheat.

I was also concerned with ventilation. Having the chicks in my bathroom, I quickly realized how fast ammonia levels build up in a confined space. I was determined that the space would have more than adequate ventilation. I learned that fresh air coops are more healthful for poultry, and as long as chickens can stay dry and out of drafts, that the cold air does not bother them.

By winter the chicken coop will contain a huddle house where the chickens can go to roost and get out of the wind. The huddle house will be heated by the birds' body heat and I estimate will be as much as 10 degrees warmer than the outside temperature.

After researching this issue some more and having an experienced chicken breeder look at my chicken coop, I ended up covering the open sides of the coop with some heavy gauge plastic for the winter. The plastic is attached at the top and weighted down at the bottom, but open at the sides. This allows for ventilation while blocking the heavy winds.

So far we have had several nights when the temperature has gotten into the teens, with the windchill in the single digits, and the chickens are no worse for wear. I found the shed to be quite comfortable whenever I went in to tend to feed, water or eggs. The shed does a good job of blocking the wind and stays dry. The chickens seem to be happy. It feels cold to me, but I am not a chicken. As long as they are happy, then I consider things to be fine.

How do I know the hens are happy? During the coldest weather I still continued to get four eggs per day from my five hens.

After cleaning everything out of the shed and trimming back the overgrown bushes that had grown up around it, the first step was to remove the panels on two walls. I decided to remove two panels on the south-facing wall and one panel and one door on the east-facing wall. This would allow for good ventilation, but would also provide protection from winter blasts.

The panels removed easily. They are held on by small screws at the floor, ceiling and a metal brace that is halfway up the wall.

A friend had come to help me with the framing. We decided to keep the brace on the long wall for stability.

These photos were taken after the panels were removed and a frame built for the front wall to increase stability of the structure.

Most of our time on this day was spent building the framing for the east- and south-facing walls. The framing is pretty straight-forward.

After careful measuring, we built the frames out of two by fours and screwed them into the holes already present in the metal shed frame at the floor, ceiling and mid-level brace. We used dry-wall screws to attach the two by fours into the metal frame.

We used a lot of screws and fastened the framing in everywhere we could. This is important so predators cannot get in. In addition to neighborhood dogs, we have raccoons and possums who sometimes visit our yard.

After I got all the hardware cloth fastened onto the frames of both the walls and the door, it was time to turn my attention to the coop interior, where the chickens would actually be spending their time.

The shed had a concrete floor, but it was covered with dirt. I estimate the shed had been in place around 15 or 20 years, long enough for a lot of debris to build up on the floor. I cleaned this up with a flat-bladed shovel and a broom.

During this cleaning process we got a lot of rain and I realized that water comes in on the floor of the new hen house. Before deciding to turn the shed into a chicken coop I had installed a rain barrel at the bottom of a nearby downspout. During a rainstorm, water was overflowing from the rainbarrel onto the patio and then seeping into the chicken house and spreading across the floor.

I tried hooking up a hose to take care of the overflow from the rainbarrel, but it was not successful. The water from the downspout was coming at a faster rate than the hose could carry out, resulting in water spilling out from the top of the rainbarrel.

I never have solved this problem, but for the time-being I have disconnected the downspout from the rainbarrel and directed the stormwater toward the driveway.

Because the floor of the chicken house frequently gets wet I made two decisions to deal with this inside the building. I built a platform on one side of the coop that gets the most water. This is also the side that is most protected from the weather otherwise, the side where the chickens sleep and where I will build them a huddle house for the winter.

I had some landscape timbers I had purchased from cheapcycle. I laid four of these down on the floor. One by the west wall, one by the east wall and two side-by-side in the middle. I had a sheet of plywood cut to fit, and place this on top of these to make a raised floor. With the two center supports, the floor can support my weight when I need to get up there to gather eggs or clean. I laid one landcape timber across the edge of the platform to prevent woodshavings from falling off.

I chose to use two timbers in the center so that I could use this area for feeding. The piece cut off from the plywood floor fit perfectly on top of the two side-by-side center timbers. I screwed this into place with drywall screws. This works nicely for keeping the water off the floor. Theoretically it was going to keep the food off the floor also, but the chickens routinely knock over their food dishes and the food goes into the substrate there.

Because of the rainwater that comes in, I put sand on the floor. I started with six bags of leveling sand and that has worked very well. I have also purchased additional bags of play sand that were on sale Memorial Day weekend, but have not put them down yet. My goal is to have two or three inches of sand on the floor, but it does not have to be done all at once.

On the platform I started putting wood shavings. I put down the woodshavings I had left over from the brooder, and I bought a big bag of wood shavings. I did not like the shavings in the big bag. The bag contained a lot of sawdust and I was concerned this would cause the birds to have respiratory problems so I did not put it down.

I noticed that the birds are perfectly happy with having just a bare floor and a little pile of wood shavings in one corner. It is much easier for me to keep clean. I just go in and scrape up the poop off the wood a couple of times a week. It only takes a couple of minutes.

During the winter the wood shavings will probably be needed for a cozy place to snuggle, but for the summer it seems that they are probably not necessary.

I found out that the landscape timbers I used on the floor of the chicken coop are pressure treated. This is good for the timbers, but not good for the chickens and definately not good for the future eggs. I am going to have to remove them, because the chemicals from the pressure treatment can get into the eggs. I do not want to eat that!

I will probably have to remove and replace the sand also. I am glad now that I did not put all that play sand down yet!

This does not sound like a fun job, but eating eggs containing chemicals from treated wood is even less appealing.

Hurray! I made Lens of the Day! Thank you to everyone for this honor! The chickens and I are so excited! (Actually, when I told the chickens they were more interested in the leftover French toast I was putting in their dish, but I am sure they are happy too. Really).

We have gotten a lot of visitors today and many questions, especially about why there are no roosts or nesting boxes in my chicken house. I thought I would give an update and try to answer some of the questions that are appearing in the comments.

My chickens do have a roost, but they are not using it much. They are all between eight and ten weeks old this weekend, so they are still very young and still like to sleep in a pile on the floor. The roost is there when they are ready.

I have posted a photo of the young hens using their roost. I went into the coop earlier this week to take photos and they got up there and started posing for me. Then they hopped back down. I never see them up there hanging out. I do have some small tree branches on the floor they like to hang out on and play with.

The chicks will not start laying eggs until they are around six months old, so we will not be needing nesting boxes until the fall. I will add them when it gets closer to time. In the meantime, the cardboard box they came home in from the feedstore is on its side in one corner. They slept in it the first few nights and now I never see anyone using it. I will probably remove it when I take out the landscape timbers.

Several people have mentioned predators, and they are a fact of life. Having chickens puts you closer to nature, and part of nature is the food chain of which chickens are definately a part. Chickens eat insects, small rodents and even small snakes. Some chickens will even eat other chickens! Predation is a part of life we do not like to think about, but it is part of raising chickens, or any livestock really. You have to be aware of it and do whatever is possible to protect your flock. The reality is, even if you do everything you can, you will still lose some or all to predators, injury or disease.

Chickens are no safer in an urban or suburban setting than they are in the country. You do what you can to protect them, and realize that risks are part of life and part of nature. I think anyone who has an interest in chickens can find a way to do this, as long as it is legal in your community. It may take a while to figure out the logistics. I thought about getting chickens for several years before I jumped into it. If you want chickens, go for it! They are great!

This chicken house is a work in progress. I still have more work to do and will be adding to this lens as work proceeds.

The next project is to build a temporary run. Whenever I go out to feed the chickens, Hilda and sometimes one or two of the others will run out the door and start munching on weeds in the yard. I plan to use two by four wire fencing, existing fence posts and metal posts to put up a temporary and mobile fence for the summer.

Future plans include building a permanent fence from the corner of the chicken house across the yard to the back fence. Another fence with a gate will run perpendicular to this to fence off the garden. The gate will be open after the garden is harvested to allow the chickens to range in there. This is a long-range goal and will not be completed this year.

Before winter arrives I need to build a huddle box for the hens to go into to cuddle and get warm. I plan to use my old chicken tractor as a frame, cover it with plywood and put a roost inside. This will go on the platform area, in the northwest corner of the chicken house.

Finally, when the weather cools off, I plan to paint my chicken coop to make it more attractive. I have not decided on a color scheme yet. Maybe you have some suggestions!

The weather is getting warm now. It should get up close to 100 degrees this weekend, and we aren't even to June yet!

The chickens are still loving their chicken shed! All are healthy. I am still getting between four and six eggs per day. This tells me my hens are healthy and happy.

One of my hens went broody earlier this spring, but since there is no rooster, nothing came of it. I will write a lens about it someday. It was a fiasco and a sad lesson for me.

Someone came by the house today. He had lost most of his flock to a fox, and after looking at my chicken shed said he was going to do the same thing at his house. It feels great to help someone else with their chickens!

If you have been inspired by this webpage to convert your shed to a chicken coop, I hope you will leave me a note and let me know how it turned out!