COOP DECOR
Make your flock right at home with the perfect interior setup.
Make your flock right at home with the perfect interior setup.
We’ve figured out what needs to go into a coop, and how to build (or buy) the right structure. But what do we put into it? In addition to the necessary architectural elements, your chicken coop will need some interior design touches. These are the pieces of chicken coop and henhouse decor that are movable, cleanable, and need to be replaced periodically. They include:
• nesting boxes;
• nesting materials and bedding;
• perches for roosting;
• feed stations and supplement hoppers;
• water stations; and
• dust-bath boxes.
No matter what shape and size your chicken coop takes, it’ll need these essential components to ensure your ladies’ health and happiness. Let’s learn a bit more about each one, looking at the function it serves, why it’s important and how to blend it into your design.
Nesting Box
Hens prefer to lay their eggs in dark, out-ofthe-way places, and nesting boxes fill that niche perfectly. A nesting box is a private space inside the henhouse where your hens can safely deposit their eggs and where you can easily gather them. When lined with wood
shavings or straw and checked once or twice a day, the eggs remain (for the most part) clean and unbroken.
You’ll need to supply one nest for every four or five hens in your flock. For your average layer hen, the nest should be about 12 inches wide by 14 inches high by 12 inches deep; for heavier breeds, 14 by 14 by 12; and for Bantams, 10 by 12 by 10. Ideally, the boxes should include a landing perch about 6 to 8 inches away from the front of the box. They should also have a lip around them so that the nesting material and eggs stay within the box.
Suitable nesting boxes come in a variety of forms. You could build your own using plywood and 2x4s, or you could purchase ready-built wooden or metal nest boxes online (search “nesting box + [your zip code]”) or at
This aboveground coop gives the ladies a view and a feeling of safety.
your favorite farm store. If you only have a few hens, even a small animal carrier will do nicely — and it’s easy to clean.
Nesting Material and Bedding
Nesting material and bedding refer to the substrates that go inside the nest box, on the henhouse floor and in the chicken yard. In the box, bedding provides a soft spot for the hens to sit, cushions the eggs, and absorbs anything tracked in on the bird’s feet.
On the hen house floor and in the yard, it cushions the ground and absorbs mud and droppings. If you practice the deep bedding method, the composting material also adds warmth to the coop, insulating the ground.
Nesting and bedding materials — no matter their form — are soft and absorbent, lightweight and easy to handle, affordable and not treated with toxic chemicals. Available options include:
• Straw. Offered at farm and feed stores, straw is a relatively inexpensive material to use in the chicken coop. It’s also compostable, making it a great choice for gardeners.
• Pine shavings. Shavings are also available from farm and feed stores, as well as from pet stores. Pine shavings cost a bit more, but they smell nice, they’re absorbent, and they’re also compostable.
• Shredded newspaper. This is an excellent option for those who want to use recycled, compostable material, and it’s inexpensive (if you have a newspaper subscription and shred the paper yourself). However, newspaper is only moderately absorbent, so you’ll need to replace it often.
• Dried lawn clippings. If you don’t spray your lawn or pasture with chemical pesticides or herbicides, you can use well-dried lawn and grass clippings you’ve collected after mowing. You’re growing it anyway — why not use it?
Try out different types of bedding to see which works best for your particular situation. Whichever you choose, make sure you freshen it often to keep it dry and droppings-free. That way, you’ll also keep the odor at bay and your ladies’ respiratory systems healthy.
Perches and Roosts
Laying hens and roosters prefer to perch off the ground where they can grasp a branch, fluff their feathers around their feet, and cozy in with their flock. Perches are not mandatory design elements in a chicken coop, but they’re a nice feature to add to the henhouse because they give your chickens a place to rest at night, exercise
their toes, smooth down their nails, regulate their body temperatures while sleeping and even play.
Chickens prefer rough, strong surfaces, especially hewn wood with rounded corners sized for them to grip comfortably with their toes — think tree branches thick enough to support their weight. In general, the perch for a regularsize chicken should be about 1½ to 2 inches wide; the perch for Bantams should be no less than 1 inch wide.
Some possible perch-making materials you can use include:
• untreated pine 2x2s with rounded tops;
• wooden dowels, about 2 inches in diameter;
• strong branches from your yard that have
been stripped of their bark;
• old pieces of lumber that you’ve inspected
for nails and splinters, sanded down, and
ripped to the right length and width;
• ladders made from wood; and
• any other item that’s strong enough to hold the birds and rough enough for them to grip without being so splintery as to injure their feet.
Avoid plastic pipe and metal pipe, both of which are too smooth for the chickens to grasp firmly.
The length of your chickens’ perches will depend on your flock’s size. Each bird will require about 6 to 10 linear inches of space, so if you have ten birds, plan for between 5 and 8 feet (60 and 96 inches) of perch. To give the birds enough space to comfortably roost, you should allow about 18 inches between the roost and the wall, or between parallel roosts. If your ladies live in tight quarters, you can create steps of
roosts 12 inches apart vertically and horizontally so that the chickens can easily hop from lower to higher rungs.
Hoppers
Two more important interior design elements are the feed station and the supplement hopper, where you provide your chicken with their daily rations and necessary supplements, such as grit or oyster shell. You can find hanging tubes, gravity feeders, plastic or metal bowls, crocks, troughs and other containers at your local feed store. In general, the stainlesssteel varieties last longer and are easier to sanitize than the plastic ones. You can also create your own feeder. For some time, we’ve used a 4-foot length of gutter flipped right-side up and leaned against the side of the henhouse for a feeder. It’s long and low, easy to hose out, and light enough that the birds don’t try to perch on it because it’ll tip over.
Allow space for at least two feeders and a hopper — even if you have a small flock — to ensure that the weaker birds don’t get bullied away. If you have roosters, furnish at least one feeding station per rooster. Each rooster will gather his hens around his feeder, which will reduce fighting. Put out enough feeders so that at least one-third of your flock can eat simultaneously. As a general rule, allow 4 inches of feeder for each mature chicken.
But where should the feeders and hopper go? If you put them inside the henhouse, the feed will stay dry, but the birds may spend a lot of time cooped up. If you put them outside the henhouse under a weatherproof awning, the birds will get fresh air, but the food may attract unwanted visitors. During the dry season, our ladies dine al fresco. (To prevent critters from stealing the food at night, we put the food inside their locked henhouse.) During the rainy season, the food and supplements stay nice and dry inside. Inside or out, the food station’s location should be easy for the flock to reach yet far enough from the perches that the birds don’t inadvertently soil the food.
Water Stations
Like the food and supplement stations, the birds’ water stations should be centrally located and easy for the flock to reach. Water is critical to your birds’ health, so they should have plenty of watering holes to visit in their chicken coop. The best waterers are:
• leak-free, drip-free, and stable enough that
they won’t easily tip;
• large enough to supply the chickens with
water all day;
• easy to clean and sanitize; and
• designed to prevent chicken-generated
debris from soiling the water.
For a small flock, hand-filled and handcarried bell-shape waterers work great. They come in a range of sizes and materials; galvanized waterers are generally preferred because, frankly, they last longer and weigh more than the plastic variety, which means they aren’t easily knocked over. They can also be hung, which will keep the water cleaner longer. In a pinch, you could use buckets, plastic planter boxes, and even crocks and bowls — but these types of container should be cleaned out frequently because they’ll get dirty very quickly.
Because larger flocks need more water throughout the day, piped-in water may be a good option. The system automatically refills the waterers, virtually ensuring that the chickens will have water at all times. However, these systems aren’t without their challenges. In addition to the cost of running plumbing out to your coop, leaky or frozen pipes are a risk. Another option is to set up a gravity flow system in which water is stored in a tank and refills the dish when the water drops to a certain level.
No matter what system you use, you should provide enough waterers so that at least one-third of your birds can drink at the same time. Even if you have so few chickens that one drinking station appears to be adequate, provide two — spaced apart — to ensure that all chickens can get a drink without fighting or chasing away those lower in the pecking order.
Dust-Bath Box
Chickens love to take dust baths. They fluff down into a divot filled with dry dirt, toss the dust up into the air, and roll around in the hole, flapping their feathers and kicking their legs. When they’re done, they hop up and shake themselves off, leaving behind a puff of dust. This dirty-dancing routine, which is typically followed by a preening session, keeps their feathers clean and in good condition. It also helps a chicken rid its feathers of parasites.
If you plan to let your ladies roam in the yard, they’ll likely find their own spot for dust baths in your garden. If you keep your chickens in a confined space, however — or the rainy season has swamped the freerangers’ favorite bathing holes — you’ll need to provide a special place for them, such as a low-sided box or litter pan filled with dust. A bright light placed overhead will prevent them from treating it as a nesting box.
No Place Like Home
Chickens are hearty birds and can adapt to virtually any living and housing situation. To help your hens thrive, however, you should provide them with an ideal environment, which includes a secure chicken coop, comfortable temperatures, plenty of room, and all the comforts of home. In the next article, we’ll look at furniture build aides for your chickens.