Chicken Tractor Plans

After spending hours reading about chicken coops and chicken tractors online, There seemed to be three basic types of chicken housing.

The smallest and easiest to build chicken coop would be a small, movable coop. Usually these have 2 sections-one that is fully enclosed where the chickens will nest and sleep, and an open air section that the chicken can spend the remainder of their time. Often times these are built in an A-frame configuration, and are the simplest type of coop to build. One advantage to these portable coops is that they can be moved around the yard quite easily and in the process, the yard is fertilized. Due to their limited size, this type of coop is recommended for no more that 3 or 4 chickens.

The next general category of coop would be a stationary coop. Typically these coops might be anywhere from 3′x4′ to 4′x 8′. The floor of these coops is elevated 2 -3′ off grade and the rather that a solid floor, it is mostly screened. This allows the chicken waste to fall through the screen for easy cleaning. There are no limits to the size of this type of coop, but it should be scaled to provide 2-3 square feet of “floor” area per chicken. It is recommended that these coops be placed adjacent to a screened yard (sides and top), with a trap door that allows the chickens to migrate between the
coop and yard. Ideally the yard should be sized based on 10 square feet per chicken, though if space is limited, this rule can be altered.

Finally, the largest variety of coops would be more of a human scaled structure. This variety of coop would have both a trap door for the chickens and a door for humans that will allow for entering to clean and retrieve eggs. While these coops are often built for chicken keeping, often times an existing shed or structure can be easily converted for this purpose.

In this section we have offered examples of three different styles and sizes of chicken coops. It should be noted that there are many other designs possible, and your ultimate choice is limited only by your imagination. However I hope that this section at least provided you with a starting point in your decision-making process. For examples of chicken coop plans check out our reviews of several different products available for instant download.