Chicken Coops: 45 Building Ideas for Housing Your Flock

Build the Perfect Housing to Fit Your Flock

Bring your chickens home to roost in comfort and style! Whether you're keeping one hen in a small backyard or 1,000 birds in a large free-range pasture, this delightful collection of hen hideaways will spark your imagination and inspire you to begin building.

Author and farmer Judy Pangman combed the country to select these 45 coops for housing both laying hens and meat birds (chickens or turkeys). The coops range from fashionable backyard structures featured in the annual Seattle Tilth City Chickens Tour and the Mad City Chickens Tour in Madison, Wisconsin, to the large-scale, moveable shelters Joel Salatin has fashioned for Polyface Farm in Virginia.

You'll also find ideas for converting trailer frames, greenhouses, and backyard sheds; low-budget alternatives for working with found and recycled materials; and simple ways to make waterers, feeders, and nestboxes. A gallery of color photographs provides other creative ideas to get you going. With basic building skills, a little elbow grease, and this book of conceptual plans and how-to drawings, you've got all you need to shelter your flock.