Making a DIY Mobile Chicken Coop
Did you know that chickens can do so much more for you than just eggs? They can productively use their love for bugs, scratching, and foraging on the homestead. A mobile chicken coop is a convenient way to get more from your chickens.
After a winter of reading and studying, I had the idea that I wanted to try a mobile chicken coop. I knew I wanted to add this to our rotational grazing plan. People call these coops many things: a chicken tractor, tractor coops, moveable chicken coops, portable chicken coops, but my favorite is the chickshaw (coined by Justine Rhodes). It’s fun and speaks to the design of it.
The idea of this mobile chicken coop is that it is just a shelter for the chickens to roost (sleep) and lay their eggs. The floor has holes so their droppings end up on the pasture. This fertilizes the field and keeps the coop clean. This also allows for plenty of ventilation.
During the day, they can come and go and forage to their heart’s content. They can go under it for shade or to get away from aerial predators.
This chicken house is meant for free-range chickens. They cannot be kept in this coop 24/7. We use a moveable electric netting to keep the hens ranging only where we want them. This saves some fresh pasture for another day and protects my flower beds. This also serves to protect from foxes, coyotes, and other lovers of poultry.
You can move it to the next location when the chickens are inside. Our plan is to have the flock follow our goats a few days behind so they can feast on the green grass, ticks, the bugs hatching from the herd’s droppings, and clean up the pasture.
Every few days, someone will move them to another spot for clean up duty. Moving them often also prevents the chicken run from being reduced to bare dirt due to the constant scratching of the chickens.
Pros and Cons of This Mobile Chicken Coop
Pros
- Free Food – You chickens can have a fresh patch of grass and weeds to munch on as often as you move the coop. This fresh grass in their diet makes for healthier chickens and better eggs.
- Clean – Moving the coop every day or so allows the chicken droppings to fall through the floor and be spread out. Nothing piles up. Nothing to shovel. Their feet also dry off on their way to the nest box so the eggs stay cleaner. Not having to muck out a large chicken coop sure does make for a happy farmer.
- Fertilizer – Because most droppings happen when chickens roost, wherever you park the coop, that is where the chickens will deposit the fertilizer. It falls right through the floor mesh.
- Lawn – Your chickens don’t have to be stuck in one spot, scratching the ground to dirt. You can move the coop often enough for the chickens to mow the grass without killing everything.
- Flexibility – You can put your chickens just about anywhere you want to. Change your mind? Move the coop!
- Mobile – If you ever move or don’t want chickens anymore, the coop can go with you or you can easily sell it. Location is not a problem.
- Size – Because they are only sleeping and laying in the coop, you can fit more chickens in it. The dimensions of the frame are 5′ x 6′. It has enough room for 32 standard-sized chickens. If you peak in at night, you will see that they cuddle up with each other and there is still space.
Cons
- Work – Mobile coops are a little more work than stationary coops. If you want the benefits listed above, you have to move the coop.
- Space – This design is a sleeping quarters only. The chicken need space to leave the coop during the day. You can still fence in this space, but they need to be able to leave the coop.
- Angle – Practicing to park it at a good angle or level enough for the water bucket to fill and the eggs to roll into the tray is necessary. However, now I can tell by looking at it whether it needs adjusting. The kick stand is adjustable to help with this, too.
- Costs – There are things you can do to lessen the cost to build this. The most expensive times were the nest box and the wheels. I’m not sure I would scrimp on the wheels, but the original design uses milk crates for the nest boxes.
How to Make a DIY Mobile Chicken Coop
We already know that you rock at raising chickens. A movable chicken house takes it to a whole new level.
I used Justin Rhodes’ chickshaw plans as a starting point. Of the mobile chicken houses I’ve seen, I liked this one the most. It also seems to the best chicken coop for our homestead.
As I shared this idea with my father-in-law, we began brainstorming the upgrades. Since you can get the actual instructions for the chickshaw here, I’m not going to go into the finer points of the build. (There is a mini chickshaw as well which would be great for a smaller flock or backyard.) I will share a bit about how we did the accessories.
This mobile chicken coop has it all! (Perhaps I got carried away??) It’s the Rolls-Royce of chicken coops. It has a roll away nest box, automatic chicken door, rainwater catchment system and auto waterer, auto feeder and calcium and grit dispenser. The roof is on hinges and lifts up to give easy access to the inside of the coop. It balances on the wheels, enabling easy movement by one person. Additionally, it features a trailer hitch (which doubles as the handle) for towing by an ATV or tractor.
Automatic Chicken Feeder
The automatic chicken feeder is designed in a way that requires the chickens to reach deep inside it. This has almost completely eliminated wasted feed.
You can make it out of a 3-foot-long, 6-inch PVC pipe, along with one 45-degree elbow, one 90-degree elbow, and one cap. From the top, the pieces are the cap, pipe, 90 degree elbow, and then the 45 degree angle.
The pieces are not glued together. They’re only pushed together as far as they can go. This holds them tight enough that it stays put. The cap is placed slightly on the top so that it can be easily removed for refilling.
We traced the elbow on the side panel and cut a hole just big enough to fit it through. Metal plumber’s strapping holds the entire feeder in place, with one piece on the inside and one on the outside of the coop.
Rainwater Catchment System
This rainwater catchment system will not eliminate the need to carry water, but with regular rains, it will definitely decrease that chore.
We cut a 4 inch pvc pipe in half, as well and one 90 degree elbow and a cap. Cut to fit the coop, we screwed the halves around the edge of the top cover of the coop. The gutter goes around 3 sides of the coop.
The ends of the corrugated panels on the roof are on the wheel sides so the gutter will catch the rain from either side of the coop. We did this because the land is not completely level so there are times when the coop will lean slightly to one side or the other.
A hole is drilled in the bottom of the front gutter, and a tube fitting is screwed into it. The fitting is equipped with a small screen over the opening, and the edge is sealed with silicone. The tube runs into a hole drilled in the cover of a 5 gallon bucket.
Automatic Chicken Waterer
At the bottom of the bucket is another tube fitting screwed into a hole in the bucket and sealed with silicone. There is a length of tube that runs from there to another fitting. This tube allows flexibility when cleaning the reservoir or pulling it up if you are going to tow the coop.
From that fitting, there is a short piece of half inch pvc pipe, a 90 degree elbow, a 12 inch piece of pipe. From there, we put a fitting so that the reservoir will screw onto the pipe. The PVC sections are glued together to ensure they can support the weight of the reservoir when filled with water.
I did a lot of looking for a self-filling reservoir and most I found were too tall for the height of the coop. I finally found this reservoir and it works great for this. If you read the reviews, you will find many that say it takes constant adjustment to get it to fill right. This is true. I adjusted the lock nuts, let it fill. Then I would adjust again, and again, until it filled to the level where I wanted it. After the initial adjusting, I have not had to adjust again.
Rollout Nest Box
I splurged on the medium rollout nest box from Hen Gear (use code RefAcres and save $15). My husband was a little skeptical about it, but has since changed his mind and loves it. There are only a few eggs that may need a touch up. spot wash. Most eggs are spotless and don’t require washing. It saves me so much time!
The nest box is positioned at the front of the coop because it’s designed to lean slightly forward. This pairs best with the nest box on the front so the eggs will roll out well. The rollout box is positioned at the back of the nest so that it can be easily emptied from outside the coop.
Automatic Chicken Coop Door
I will do a post just on this automatic chicken coop door, but let me tell you the highlights. An automatic chicken coop door is worth its weight in gold. They have the option of either wired, solar, or battery operated. I used the Chickcozy automatic chicken coop door because the door opens to the side like elevator doors. This design fit well with my mobile chicken coop.
I have a Run-Chicken Automatic door on my fixed chicken coop and love it. However, the door opens up and, in this case, would hit the overhang of the roof. The split door, side to side opening actually fits perfectly on the end of the mobile chicken coop.
Both doors just screw onto the frame around the opening in your coop. There is an option to open and close at a particular time, at sun rise and sunset, or up to an hour after each. It eliminates the need to go out at dark to close the coop door to keep your chickens safe for the night.
Conclusion
Since building our mobile chicken coop, we have had our chickens mowing our lawn and weeding and tilling our garden. It has given us the flexibility to put our chickens to work for us beyond eggs. I can easily move the coop to the next spot, even up small hills. With the combination of the moveable coop and a moveable fence, we keep the chickens foraging where we want them and easily feed them for free.
The old designated chicken run has been growing grass again because the chickens are out on fresh grass and not scratching one spot down to bare dirt. Now, the chickens are no longer in one spot to tear it to dirt, unless we want them to (eg. tilling the garden). Instead of leaving bare dirt behind, they leave fertilizer and therefore dark green, lush grass.
We are putting the chickens to work for the growing months. For the winter months, being in the frozen, snowy north, the chicken will either have to go back to their fixed coop or we need to park the mobile coop under closed cover to protect the from the weather and cold wind. Among all the plans we have for the homestead, we are working on a plan for a hoop house to park the mobile coop in and use it for an indoor run. We plan to put our compost in there for them to turn and add to. This is a post for another day.
What do you think of a mobile chicken coop? Do you have experience with one?
