My chicken house and chicken yard look like a shanty town. I have a slapped together, constantly tinkered with, completely functional and flexible, eyesore of a chicken shack, which also just happens to be way too close to my house. Now this was not my original plan. When I first acquired chickens I had dreams of a beautiful, well planned out, red painted with white trim, chicken palace. Unfortunately, it was not too be.
Prior to obtaining chickens, I did some research in my good old ‘Encyclopedia of Country Living’ by Carla Emery (I love this book) to figure out schematics of my new chicken palace. After researching, my basic requirements for my chicken house and yard were these;
- I wanted healthy birds that did not peck each other,
- I wanted eggs all year long,
- I did NOT want to have a separate building for raising baby chickens,
- I wanted them to have lots of room to roam in the ‘warm’ seasons, meaning a large chicken park because they couldn’t free range due to my dog and foxes in the area.
After creating a plan and running the numbers I realized I did not have the money for my dream chicken palace. But did that stop me from acquiring chickens? No it did not! So when we moved into my house in the fall of 2011, I quickly answered an add on Craigslist for somebody getting rid of layer chickens for free. Without telling my husband first, I carted home three chickens and two small breed heritage turkeys. Upon arriving home my husband informed me, in the non-huffiest terms possible of course, that we had nowhere to put them and only a month until winter. “No problem”, I said, “We’ll put them in the old outhouse”. And that’s what we did. So we quickly gutted and insulated our new chicken house, and ended up with a building approximately 4′ wide by 8′ long by 8′ tall. I then ran four feet tall poultry netting outside of the chicken house in a 20′ x 14′ oval tacking it to black spruce trees and throwing more black spruce logs on the ground. Because we’re on a steeply sloped piece of land I had to wedge in old pieces of wood and rocks to fill in the holes around the bottom of the wire. No big surprise, I lost a lot of chickens the first year to my dog, because my dog is a “Really Bad Farm Dog”, and to the neighbors’ dogs. Turns out when there’s six feet of snow every year and you live on a slope, four feet tall poultry netting doesn’t cut it. So that was year one.
So let’s fast forward and cut many long stories short, about 7 years worth. By now I’ve tinkered with my chicken house a million times over and had many iterations. Every year I’ve had a new idea, ran into a new set of problems and learned something new. And every year I think I should just rip this chicken shack down and start from scratch but….somehow I just can’t do it, my chicken shack is just too functional to be torn down over a little things such as being a huge eyesore.
So here is my summary, based on years of mistakes and trials, on how to create a truly flexible, multipurpose house for your chickens. And hopefully yours will be a bit better looking than my own. My sister’s Jessica’s sure is.
Jess’s chicken house. 
Woven wire fencing to keep dogs and raccoons out.
Infrastructure
- I provided an insulated chicken house, this significantly reduced costs when the heat lamp is on in the winter, kept the birds natural heat inside the house in the winter, and kept them cooler in the summer. I also made my chicken house tall enough to stand in. Have you ever tried cleaning 6 months of chicken poo out of house you can’t stand in it? I have and I wouldn’t recommend it. Inside the chicken house I have nest boxes, a heat lamp on a thermostat, a place for feed and water (hopefully your chicken house is or will be large enough to have your food and water inside), a roost, and LED lights on a timer.
- I created a covered outside area in the chicken park that is dry and snow free. The covered area should also be fairly draft free, use greenhouse plastic, plywood or upcycled material to block the wind. I also provided roosts, nest boxes, and places for feed and water. You’ll be amazed at how many birds choose to be sleep outside even during cold weather. I have light bulbs on timers (preferably LED) outside as well. For your chicken houses and parks, make sure predators can’t get in your pen at night, the biggies are raccoons, so choose your wire fencing carefully, and cover you chicken yard or cover your roost if necessary at night. Raccoons can climb, and both raccoons and dogs can break through poultry netting.
- I created a fenced in chicken yard for my chickens since they can’t free range. Six foot fences or taller are ideal so you can walk under them if they are covered or so the birds can’t easily fly over them.
Winter
- I leave the door from the chicken house to the chicken yard open during the winter.
- I leave the heat lamp (red light preferably) inside the insulated house, put on a thermostat. This keeps the chickens’ combs and eggs (and water bowl if inside) from freezing.
- I provide 14 hours of LED light, by using a timer, inside and outside the house, to convince my chickens to lay all winter, and so they can see when there is only three hours of daylight.
- If you have a small hen house like I do, put the water and food outside the chicken house so the birds have to go outside at points during the day during the winter. This eliminates pecking issues and overcrowding.
- I use the deep litter method inside and outside the chicken house, it provides free heat for the birds.
The gate to my chicken park. 
The gate area and fencing with plastic to help block the wind and snow.
Spring, Summer, and Fall
- As soon as it’s above freezing most of the time, I kick my chickens out of the chicken house and close the chicken door between the house and chicken yard. They now have a home in their covered pen with nest boxes, roosts, food, and water. They also can access the rest of their chicken park that is not covered if they choose to do so. I don’t have raccoons up here and haven’t had a problem with owls since it’s light most of the time and the trees around my house are small.
- I then clean the chicken house for the baby chicks ,once the adults are kicked out. There is already a heat lamp in the chicken house so I have an instant brooder, I just lower the height of the heat lamp about a foot and half from the floor. For more details on setting up for baby chicks read our post on ‘Starting Your Backyard Flock’. As soon as the baby chickens are old enough, in early fall, I open the chicken door and let those birds mingle. I’ve also noticed if you have a large number of baby chicks at once, say more than 5, the adult chickens don’t pick on them as much.
*WARNING- Please be careful using heat lamps, if they fall they can cause a fire. I always use long, securely fastened screws in a piece of wood so the clamp of the heat lamp can’t slip off when the chickens hit it, which they will.
By building this type of chicken house with a covered roost/nest box area attached to a run, I only have to have one chicken structure (i.e. save money), can house more chickens that if I only had the house, reduce pecking issues, and have a weather free space for my chickens that is still outside.
