Home Skills Landscaping
ByDevon Thomas Treadwell
Updated: Jan. 09, 2024
Increasing numbers of homeowners are raising chickens in their backyards, and the creativity in chicken coop design is booming. From funky and playful to stately and classic, these chicken coop ideas will get your creative juices flowing.
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Hotel Eggcelsior
The ladies roosting inside this adorable chicken coop enjoy a roomy 6-foot by 8-foot interior, with 6-foot ceilings and a skylight. The coop’s corrugated tin roof adds a nice finishing touch to the “Hotel Eggcelsior.”
If you like this look, check out this instructional on how to cut sheet metal.
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World’s First Smart Coop
This unassuming little box is actually the world’s first automated and mobile device/app controlled backyard chicken coop. Inside is a video camera so you can keep an eye on your hens from anywhere in the world. Food and water are replenished automatically, and you can even open the door remotely, with your phone.
Just so your chicken coops or coop isn’t smarter than your house, here are 14 cool tech gadgets that turn your home into a smart house.
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Cute and Cozy
A building company made this chicken coop for a customer who wanted something super cute. The cheerful trim around the door and windows was cut by hand. Using a jigsaw, you can make the same trim for your coop.
Also, check these no-waste DIY chicken feeders are a quick, easy, and affordable way to keep the coop clean, save money, and keep your chickens constantly clucking.
Here’s how to use a jigsaw.
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All Local Materials
This beautiful chicken coop was built from materials found on the property—field stones and boulders gathered from a riverbed and fallen logs of cedar and locust. The flagstone garden path adds an inviting touch.
Here’s how you can build your own stone path.
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Blue Plate Special
With its gingham curtains, quaint screen door and parody Chick-fil-A sign, this chicken coop mimics a country diner. If you build a screen door like this for your coop, here’s how to install heavy-duty screen mesh.
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Classic Craftsman
This coop, called The Craftsman, has an 18-foot by 8-foot footprint and features a functional cupola—complete with a weather vane—a Dutch door, board-and-batten siding, reclaimed windows and a chandelier for the ladies inside.
To power up your backyard chicken coop, here’s how to run electricity from your house and install outdoor fixtures like these.
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Storybook Style
The shiplap siding, cedar shake shingles and whimsical angles give this chicken coop a fairytale cottage style. The owner milled his own siding and shingles from trees on the property for the chicken coops.
With the right tools, you too can make your own shiplap siding.
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For Contemporary Chickens
Designed by an architect as an extension of his garden, this modern chicken coop shelters three hens, which is the limit per Portland, Oregon ordinances. The 4-foot insulated modern chicken coop is topped with a living roof—a bed of native sedum plants—which helps keep the hens cool and comfortable.
For more on green roofing, see what’s new in residential roofing materials.
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Biddies with a Badge
The French slang word for police—”poulet”—means “chicken,” which makes this coop a visual pun. Artist Benedetto Burfalina repurposed a French cop car from the 1970s, gutting it and installing a wooden floor, propping open the trunk, hood and doors and covering all the openings with chicken wire.
Check out these chicken coop building tips.
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The Tardis
A Doctor Who fan built this Tardis for his backyard chicken coop. No word yet on whether his chickens have traveled through time and space.
Feline-loving Doctor Who fans will find a Tardis cat condo among our collection of awesome DIY cat furniture ideas.
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Child’s Play
This charming chicken coop was repurposed from a children’s playhouse. The sturdy polymer material is durable, waterproof and resists insects, while natural palm fronds provide an authentic thatched chicken coop roof.
Check out this beautiful playhouse one of our readers made for his daughters.
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Coop in a Kit
Here’s another chicken coop built from a children’s playhouse—this one from a manufactured kit. Just screw the wooden panels together and cover the chicken coop roof with shingles. The owners added a solar light to illuminate the interior and, working with salvaged materials, customized the inside with composite flooring, DIY nesting boxes made from pallets, and a loft shelf for storing bales of straw.
If this project looks doable to you except for the roof, never fear—a little chicken coop roof like this isn’t that tough. Here’s how to install shingles.
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Photo: Courtesy merchant
The Pullets’ Turret
You could almost be jealous of these chickens. They live in a stone turret on the grounds of a multimillion-dollar estate once owned by the heir to the Campbell Soup fortune. The coop reflects the majestic Norman architectural style of the 1929 mansion located on 50 acres in Gladwyne, Pennsylvania.
A solid stone tower like this costs tens of thousands of dollars, but you could build a similar tower for much less by cladding it with stone veneer. Here’s a tutorial on modern stone installation tips.
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Country Kitsch
And on the other end of the spectrum is this chicken coop in all its shabby chic glory. The accessories change with the seasons, varying from rustic birds’ nests to old farm implements to autumn wreaths and seasonal plants in earthenware crocks.
If your taste runs toward a folksy feel with or without chicken coops, here are 20 easy ways to add farmhouse style to any home.
Originally Published: April 24, 2019
