Building hen house

Spaciousness and condition are two important items you should consider when plan to build a hen house (or chicken coop). Firstly you should think about how many chickens you want to keep because more chickens need more space and less chickens less. You should need around 4.5 sq ft of space per chicken. A chicken coop usually looks like a garden house, but if you only want to keep three hens you can build a hen house of smaller proportions (only 10.5 square feet area and a height of 31 inches). The door also serves as a window and could be made of glass or Plexiglas. The roof has to be removable for comfortable cleaning of the chicken coop and should be covered with roofing felt. You should build a hen house with a roofing felt of about some inches over the ground to avoid wetness seeping in from the ground. With a chicken ladder they can go outside. Tar paper, breather type building paper or similar roofing underlay could be used under roofing boards.

The windows should point to the east so that there is enough light in the hen house in the morning, which improves the laying performance. In the summer time you can replace the window with a wire netting to get fresh air into the hen house. But anyway you should avoid draft. The height of the hen house should be about two meters so that you can walk inside comfortably. The door should be at least 80 cm wide to get inside with a handcart, too. The exit for the chickens should be a small door, about 25 cm wide and 40 cm high so that they won't scratch out the straw on the floor. Lukas Kiefer: Chicken Yard.

Wikipedia

Wells Poultry Housing

Build Eazy

Chicken Yard

Pratie Place

Delta Waterfowl

Materials:

Most people build a hen house of wooden, especially with a smaller number of chickens, because it is easier and cheaper to build. The hen house should be warm and bright and it should have a good air condition. The temperature should not sink under 5 °C, because then the eggs lose their capacity for development. You could construct double walls with insulating material in between. The ground should consist of wood or concrete, the last one saves the hen house pretty well against mice and rats compared with a wooden floor where those animals can easily invade chicken coop. 4'x8' plywood sheets with 3/4" thick, suitable for exterior use are great for flooring, wall cladding and parts of nesting boxes.

Build a hen house

You will also need an assortment of hardware including nails, hinges, door latches, door bolts, window catches, Perspex/Plexiglas or similar clear acrylic sheet for use as window panes, galvanized flashings for openings where required as well as for roof ridge cap, and mesh/wire cloth/chicken wire for any permanent openings or air vents.

Additional information about the materials you need to build a hen house, and also DIY chicken coops plans can be found at Build Eazy.