![]() Next, he welded 10-foot lengths of angle iron to the rectangles, giving us a coop frame 10 feet long, 3 feet wide and 2 feet high. To make the steel frame, our DIY guru, Nathan Lindsey, first welded three 2-foot-by-3-foot rectangles from square steel tubing. To view the video in full screen, click on the second icon from the right at the bottom of the video box.) Building MOTHER’s Mighty Chicken-Mobile (To see an animation of how the coop comes together, view the video at left in the “Related Content” box. Nighttime shelter inside the coop can be a lightweight plastic storage tub, a doghouse or a “room” made from corrugated plastic. We’re calling it MOTHER’s Mighty Chicken-Mobile, and it’s intended to house three to four hens. The coop is still portable, but the frame makes it much more predator-proof. These ultra-lightweight pens still work great inside a fenced garden or yard where dogs can’t get to them, but for a coop to use in unfenced areas, we’ve developed the improved design shown above, which features a steel frame to support the wire mesh. The lightweight, inexpensive, wire-mesh pens we wrote about in the 2007 Portable Chicken Mini-Coop Plan were working well until we discovered a large dog could smash an unreinforced wire unit and kill the hens inside. We wanted a coop that would allow the birds to forage on pasture or fertilize garden beds while still keeping them safe from predators. Our goal has been a small, secure, low-cost, DIY, portable chicken coop for use in gardens and backyards. They will naturally return to the coop at dusk to roost, or, if you need to get them inside before dusk, you can easily train them to run into the coop by giving them treats.įor several years, MOTHER EARTH NEWS has been working to develop inexpensive chicken coop plans for folks who want to keep just a few hens or raise a few meat birds. When you’re working outdoors and your presence will deter predators, you can let your birds out of the coop to range. Each day, move the pen onto a fresh section of your lawn, garden or pasture. You can keep your birds inside a movable chicken coop that has an open bottom so the birds can feed on grass and insects. Portable chicken coops (also called “pasture pens”) are a good solution, especially if you keep only a few hens. Even in urban areas, foxes, raccoons and hawks can kill your chickens, and roaming dogs can be a problem in urban and rural areas. Sometimes you may lose just one bird other times you’ll experience heavy losses in just one attack. ![]() The downside of allowing chickens to free-range is that predators will almost always discover your flock and kill some birds. Letting the birds roam and consume a diverse diet results in eggs and meat with terrific flavor and nutrition. One of the biggest challenges in keeping chickens is figuring out how to build a chicken coop and pen that will allow your birds to forage while also keeping them safe from predators. ![]()
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