Chicken Farm House Design | Pretty & Efficient

Ian wrote all about how we designed & constructed the chicken farm house coop below. You can find the plans for this coop on our Etsy shop! Chicken Guard was kind enough to send us the automatic door for this build, and our chickens absolutely love the treats that GrubTerra was kind enough to send as well. (Use the code “OakAbode for 10% off!) This post contains affiliate links which may lead to a commission if purchased. This comes at no extra cost to you. Thanks!

Chicken Farm House Design

When we first got chickens back in 2018, building a chicken coop was almost an afterthought. Our first dozen chicks grew up so quickly that we did not have time to research the most efficient design to meet our needs. In a way, our Agile-like approach (fail quickly and fail often) to homesteading gets us to the most efficient solutions. That is, except when it comes to our poultry coop. 

We have been wanting to build a new coop ever since we made the first one. But building a chicken coop is time consuming and expensive. And we wanted to do it right. A few weeks ago, we found a young possum eating the eggs in the coop and decided that a new chicken farm house (with more security) had to be built. Our breakfasts were at stake! This is when the design for the chicken farm house was born.

Chicken Farm House Must-Haves

Here are some of the features we are requiring for the chicken farm house.

1. Security from predators 
2. Taller, so we didn’t hit our heads on the roof
3. Modular/portable enough to move it from one property to another
4. Ability to fill feed from outside
5. A water nook so chickens make less mess in their water
6. Separate nesting boxes
7. Easy to clean out
8. Automatic chicken door so we can leave for a couple days without worrying

With these features in mind, I did some research into chicken coops that I could model my plans after. The one that I liked the most is Homesteadenomics’s coop. His coop is feature-rich, very efficient in materials, and looks great! The main take-away from his coop that I wanted to use was the use of full sheets of plywood, so I did not have to spend a lot of time cutting. 

After getting inspired, I drafted the design for the chicken farm house with pen and paper. I’m not too familiar with how to use Sketch Up just yet, so this is how I design most of our projects. 

Base Assembly

This chicken farm house is rather heavy, so the base has to be able to support all of that weight. The design is simple with the outside dimensions of 48” x 96” so we could utilize a full sheet of plywood. 2×4’s were used for the outside frame of the base. 

The legs are 4” x 4” x 24” that were cut from one 8-foot piece of lumber. 

I cut a 2×4 to fit at a 45-degree angle in each of the corners to trap the 4×4.  I sunk lag screws into each leg from this 2×4.

Wall Assembly

I framed these walls with 2x3s instead of 2x4s to help save on cost and weight. The 4 walls are designed to be secured to each other with three ¼” bolts in each corner so that they can be disassembled, stacked on top of the base, and moved on a trailer. (We plan on moving from this house in the next few years, and don’t want to have to build a whole new chicken farm house again!)

Full sheets of plywood are used to sheath the two longer walls. You can see that the 2×3 structure of the wall is smaller than the plywood sheathing. The two ends overlap the framing by 2 ½” to cover the smaller walls’ framing. The bottom of the plywood overlaps the bottom plate by 1” so that water running down the face won’t go back into the coop. Finally, the plywood sheathing is 1 ½” longer on the top to that the roof assembly can nest inside the wall assembly.

Stud Spacing

Initially, studs were spaced 24” on center on the walls. Once the sizes and placement of the nest box, feed dispenser, automatic door, and water box were finalized, stud placement was adjusted accordingly. These walls are bearing a lot of weight, so moving some of the studs wont impact the wall performance all that much. 

I designed one of the short walls to hold the clean-out door. I wanted this door to be as large as possible so that we could crawl in the coop if necessary. 

To secure the walls to the base, I used lag screws through the bottom plate and into the 2×4’s in the base.

Again, three ¼” bolts were used to secure all the walls together. I countersunk the bolt heads in the plywood sheathing. Trim now covers these for a more finished look.

Attaching the Roof

Originally the roof assembly was going to be a gable roof. But to save time and energy, we switched to a simple shed roof. We left 12” of overhang on the long sides and 8” on the shorter sides to give plenty of cover when it rains. 

The plywood sheathing covering the sides of the roof assembly does not go all the way down. This is because the bottom plate of the roof assembly nests inside the wall assemblies. Trim will cover the seams of the plywood sheathing to prevent water from entering the coop.  

There are vents along the sides of the roof to prevent dangerous ammonia gas buildup.

Galvanized corrugated sheet metal roofing covers the roof assembly and the various boxes sticking out from the coop. This is the cheapest option for roofing material.

Nest Box

The nest box is a really simple 30” wide plywood box with a divider in the middle so two chickens can lay at the same time. Eggs can be found basically anywhere outside of the nest box though. 

It is secured with screws through the plywood box into the studs. 

The roof is just plywood with a 2×3 frame and a corrugated roofing cover. 

Water Box

One major problem with water inside the chicken coop is that the chickens kick bedding into the water dispenser. That, or they like to just kick it right over. For the new chicken farm house, we decided to try putting the heated plastic poultry fountain in its own box. This is so that we can fill from the outside, and prevent it from being knocked over. We cannot use the little watering cups because in our climate, those freeze during the winter.

Automatic Door

We were very excited when Chicken Guard reached out to us to ask if we wanted to try one of their battery-powered automatic doors. When we go out of town, we sometimes have to hire a chicken-sitter to make sure they are secure in the coop. Instead of daily chicken check-ins, this door has locking bars at the bottom and make for a very secure coop. This is one of the best features of this new chicken farm house. 

Installing the Chicken Guard door was very simple and doesn’t require and special tools. If you already have a coop, this door can still be retro-fitted with little effort. Having to go outside to let them out and close them in is now a chore of the past. We’re loving it so far.

Calcium Supplementation

You may be wondering where oyster shells and calcium supplementation fit into this chicken farm house design. We actually do not use oyster shells for strong egg shells, but prefer to use GrubTerra black soldier fly larvae, instead. We especially like to use these treats during the winter, to help replace some of the insect micro nutrients that the chickens would be getting if it were summertime, through free ranging. You can use the code “OakAbode” on GrubTerra’s website to save 10%.

Our Dream Chicken Farm House

Though there are a few changes to the design compared to when we first drafted it, the chicken farm house has every feature that we could have hoped for. Even though our chicken care chore list was minimal with our deep litter bedding, we’re excited to have even less to worry about now. And, of course, it looks so much better than our last chicken coop did! You can find our plans for this chicken farm house on our Etsy shop!