Chicken Coop Plans: How to Build a Modern 6-Hen Coop
Quick build Good chicken coop plans start with the space math. A coop needs about 4 square feet of floor per standard hen inside, another 8 to 10 square feet per hen in the run, one nesting box per 3 to 4 hens, 8 to 12 inches of roost bar per bird, and every single opening covered in hardware cloth rather than chicken wire.
This one is 12 feet long, 5 feet deep, and 6-1/2 feet tall: six hens, three nesting boxes with outside egg access, two roosts, a walk-in door, a storage compartment, and a covered run that stays dry through a Michigan winter. It frames with Simpson Strong-Tie connectors instead of joinery, so it goes together like a small shed. Build video below, printable plans are $20. Documented by Jamison Rantz, October 2026.
Prefer to watch? The full build is on YouTube.
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Everything below in one organized, print-ready PDF: cut list, dimensions, step-by-step diagrams and shopping list. Perfect for the shop wall or your phone.
My wife Jamie and our daughter Madison came home with six baby chickens. That’s the whole origin story. Buying the birds before we had anywhere to put them turned out to be an effective project schedule.
The coop you regret is the one you can’t clean and can’t defend. Everything else is preference. So this one has a door you walk through instead of a hatch you reach into, nesting boxes you open from outside, a run under the coop that stays dry, and hardware cloth on every opening. The clean modern lines were for me. The rest was for the six hens and the raccoons that showed up to meet them.
The connector schedule is what makes it a weekends build instead of a months build. Every 90 degree post-to-frame joint is a bracket and screws rather than a cut you have to get right. It was originally a Simpson Strong-Tie collaboration, and I’d still frame it that way if the check had never come.
Backyard system, not just a coop. The welded wire garden fence went around this coop and the garden, the double compost bin eats the bedding that comes out of it, and the raised garden beds get the compost. Chickens in, eggs and dirt out.
Chicken Coop Plans: Dimensions
12 feet long, 5 feet deep, 6-1/2 feet tall at the high side. The coop box sits at one end on legs, the covered run extends out from under it, and one continuous roof covers both.
How to Build
Set and level the base
The base is treated 2×6, squared by measuring both diagonals until they match. Level matters more here than anywhere else, because out of level gives you doors that swing open on their own and a nesting box lid that never quite seals. Treated lumber only for anything touching dirt.
Frame the coop box with connectors
The wall frames are 2×2 and 2×4 tied together with fence brackets and A21 angles rather than cut joinery, which is the entire reason this build moves. Square each wall on the ground before it goes up, and dry-fit the connectors before you commit screws. RTA2Z rigid tie angles handle the post-to-frame corners that carry the roof load.
Sheath and side it
Half-inch OSB for sheathing, then cement board lap siding with 1×4 corner trim. Cement board is why this coop still looks like this: chickens are hard on a building, and wood siding in a wet yard is a repaint every couple of years. Cut cement board outside, with a mask on. The dust is silica.
Cut the openings
Walk-in door, pop door for the birds, and the vent up under the roofline. Put the vent above roost height, always: warm damp air rises off the birds overnight and has to leave, but a draft across a roosting hen in January is how combs get frostbitten. Start at roughly a square foot of screened vent per 10 square feet of coop floor.
Build the nesting boxes
Three boxes on the low wall, with a hinged exterior lid so eggs come out without anyone going in. One box per 3 to 4 hens is the rule, so three is generous for six birds, and they will still queue for the same one. Keep the boxes below the roosts: hens sleep on whatever is highest, and you don’t want that to be where they lay.
Roof it
Felt, drip edge, then roofing over the whole 12 foot span in one plane. A single-slope roof over both the coop and the run is what makes the run usable in winter: snow sheds off the back and the birds get dry ground.
Roosts, ramp, and fit-out
Roosts are 2x4s flat side up, which lets a hen cover her toes with her body in the cold. Allow 8 to 12 inches of bar per bird, mount them 18 to 24 inches off the floor for standard breeds, above the nesting boxes and below the vent. The ramp from the pop door gets cleats every few inches. Storage compartment goes in at the end, because feed you keep 40 feet away is feed you resent.
Frame the run and skin every opening in hardware cloth
The run frames in 2x2s and gets wrapped in 1/2″ hardware cloth, stapled and trimmed over so nothing can work an edge loose. Not chicken wire. A raccoon opens chicken wire with its hands, and will reach through it. Finish with an apron: 12 inches of hardware cloth lying flat on the ground around the perimeter, or buried, so diggers hit wire instead of dirt.
Final Result
A coop that houses six hens, cleans out in minutes because you walk into it, gives up its eggs from the outside, and keeps a flock dry through a snowed-in February. It also looks like something designed on purpose, which matters when it’s what you see out the kitchen window every morning.
FAQ
What is the ideal chicken coop layout?
Stack it by height. Roosts highest, nesting boxes lower and darker, ventilation above the roosts, feed and water in the run rather than under a roost bar. Put the human door where you can reach the whole floor with a rake, and the egg access on an exterior wall. Everything else is style.
How big should a chicken coop be per chicken?
About 4 square feet of coop floor per standard hen, plus 8 to 10 square feet per hen in the run. Bantams need less, heavy breeds and snowbound climates more, and there’s no such thing as too much run. Crowding turns a calm flock into a pecking, egg-eating one, and building one size up is cheaper than adding on later.
Is it cheaper to buy or build a chicken coop?
Depends what you’re comparing. A $300 flat-pack coop is genuinely cheaper than building, and it’s thin plywood and chicken wire that a determined raccoon gets into. Compare like for like and building wins: a prebuilt walk-in coop this size runs into the low thousands, while cost guides put a new-materials DIY build of this scale in the four figures with your labor at zero. I never tracked a receipt total on this one and I won’t invent one. Price the list at your yard, and know that the siding and the connector schedule are the two lines that move it.
Should I use chicken wire or hardware cloth?
Hardware cloth, always. Chicken wire keeps chickens in. It does not keep anything out. Half-inch hardware cloth on every opening, stapled and trimmed over, plus a 12 inch apron flat on the ground or buried around the perimeter for the diggers. Go to quarter-inch if you’ve got weasels or rats.
Do chickens need heat or insulation in winter?
No, and a heat lamp in a coop full of shavings is a fire I’d rather you didn’t have. Chickens handle cold far better than heat. What they need is dry, draft-free, and ventilated up high, plus a covered run so they’ll actually go outside instead of standing in the doorway looking offended.
Your Move
Start with the flock number, not the coop. Six hens, 4 square feet each inside, 10 each in the run, and the footprint tells you what to build. If this is the shape you want, the plans have every dimension, the cut list, and the connector schedule, and the video walks the build. Then go stand in the yard and figure out where you’d rather not shovel snow.
Be safe and happy building, Jamison
So where did you get the what looks to be solar lights on the ouside wall there and the electronic door opener inside the coop?
Hey Man I love this coop. I am trying to build a version of it myself. I was wondering is you can list some alternatives for the simpson screws and nails – having a hard time finding them in my location
Nice and easy!
I think we are going to try to do this coop! Any tips beyond the instructions? I’m not 100% sure I can follow it! will be an adventure for sure!
Love your coop. I’m 95% finished with it, just need to add in more wire and hang the door. What is the name of the battery powered tin snips? I tried to find it at Home Depot but no one knows what I’m asking for. Thanks! https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
They’re using cordless offset shears. Here’s a link to a similar Dewalt product: https://www.homedepot.com/p…
What kind of roofing did you use?
Any improvements/ refinements/ deletions/ additions you would make in version 2.0?
I’m about 90% complete with this coop. Thank you for making the instructions so easy to follow. I’ll post pictures once it’s up and running!
How much did it cost everyone to build this?
Did you get that answer on the total cost to build this coop?Im intrested on the build too
Nice design, but what is the slot on the front panel for? I assumed it was for a waste tray inside the coop, but it looks like it was abandoned and the floor installed above the slot. If the floor was below the slot, you could remove the coop base tray, removed the waste, and slide it back in from outside. I cannot see any purpose for slot and it seems to be unused lumber and bracket in the finished build.