Four hens is where most first flocks land, and this is built for four
Most people who start with chickens start with three or four. Enough for a steady egg supply, few enough to learn on. This design is sized for exactly that flock, with no stretch built into the rating.
At 4 birds each hen gets 4 square feet of coop floor. That sits at the top of the 3-4 square feet per bird that Oregon State, Virginia Tech and eXtension publish for a coop with an attached run. At 3 birds it’s 5.3 square feet each, which is roomy.
The roost is 40 inches, so four hens get 10 inches apiece. That’s the generous end of the 6-to-10-inch range Penn State, Oregon State and Maryland Extension publish. Two nest boxes serve four hens with room to spare.
The run is the number to watch. 24 square feet across four birds is 6 square feet each, under the 8-10 square feet extension services give for a permanent run. At three birds you hit 8 square feet, right on the line. So the honest reading is this: three hens can live in this run full time, four hens want some supervised yard time most days.
The price per square foot falls fast at this end of the line
| Design | Coop | Run | Hens | Build time | Materials | Per sq ft of coop |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4x4 starter | 10 sq ft | 16 sq ft | 2–3 | 10–14 hrs | $1,650–$2,150 | $165–$215 |
| 4x6 (this one) | 16 sq ft | 24 sq ft | 3–4 | 18–26 hrs | $1,900–$2,450 | $119–$153 |
| 4x8 shed coop | 23 sq ft | 32 sq ft | 4–6 | 16–24 hrs | $2,250–$2,900 | $98–$126 |
That last column is the story of small coops. Every one of them needs a roof, a nest bank, a pop door, an access panel, hinges, latches, paint and a foundation, and those costs barely change with length. Stretch the box and you spread them over more floor.
Going from the 4x4 to this design adds two pier blocks, one post, eight more 2x4s, a second window and 16 more feet of hardware cloth. That’s most of the $250-$300 difference, and it buys 60 percent more coop floor.
The next step up is less clear cut. The 4x8 shed coop costs another $350-$450 and adds seven square feet of coop and two more hens. It also changes the roof and the wall height, so it’s a different building rather than a longer one. If four is your number, this is the better buy. If you already know you want six, skip straight past it. The coop size calculator will settle it faster than a spreadsheet.
Four feet deep means the whole coop is one arm’s reach
This is the quiet advantage of the 4-foot family, and it gets lost once you look at bigger coops.
The floor spans 42 inches between rims. From the access panel on the front wall, the back wall is about one arm’s length away. You can reach every roost, every corner and the full droppings board from outside. Catching a hen at night means kneeling at the panel, not crawling in after her.
The 6-foot-deep designs can’t do this. Their floors span 66 inches, which is past anyone’s reach, so they compensate with taller walls and you lean in with your head and shoulders. That works, but it’s a different routine. If you know you hate the idea of putting your head inside a coop, the 4-foot depth is the reason to stay small.
The trade is that 36-inch walls mean you’re low to the ground for every job. The reach is the win. The posture isn’t.
Where a 12-foot strip fits in a yard
Coop plus run comes to 144 inches long by 48 inches wide. That’s a 12-by-4-foot strip, and it fits places most coops don’t: a side yard, the gap between a garage and a fence, the dead strip along a back property line.
Three things to check before you pick the spot.
Drainage first. The coop sits on 10 pier blocks over compacted gravel, and the run floor is a cubic yard of coarse sand or drain rock. Neither of those fixes ground that holds water. Pick the high side of the yard.
Which end faces where. The run attaches to one end wall and the pop door goes through it. The access panel is on the long front wall. Put the front wall where you walk up, not against the fence, because you can’t reach in from the back.
Setbacks. A 48-square-foot footprint is tiny, but local zoning often sets a minimum distance from property lines and neighboring houses for any poultry structure. That rule is separate from building permits. The permit guide explains how the two differ.
Two weekends, and where the second one goes
The 4x4 is one weekend. This is two, at 18 to 26 hours. Nothing about the 4x6 is harder, and the step count is the same 18. The extra time is almost all repetition.
The run is 6 feet long instead of 4, so there’s more framing and a longer buried apron. The material list calls for 68 feet of quarter-inch, 19-gauge hardware cloth against 52 on the 4x4, fixed with 272 fender washers and screws. Every one of those washers is a screw you drive by hand, and they’re the reason the second weekend exists.
Don’t skip them to save time. Staples alone pull out of the frame when a raccoon leans on the mesh. The screw and washer are what hold. Quarter-inch mesh also matters: University of Kentucky Extension documents in ID-245 that a least weasel goes through half-inch, and that a raccoon only needs a gap big enough for a paw. The predator-proofing guide covers the full routine.
Two windows, and why they stay open at night
The 4x6 gets a second 18-by-23-inch window that the 4x4 doesn’t have. In a hot summer that second opening is doing real work, because it gives you air moving across the coop instead of one opening trying to do everything.
The plan puts quarter-inch hardware cloth on the inside of every window opening, behind the glass. That detail is what lets you leave the windows open on a hot night without handing a raccoon a door. A window you have to close at dusk is a window that’s shut when the coop is hottest.
The windows are extra, not the base ventilation. That job belongs to a continuous open strip along the top of the back wall, 5-1/2 inches deep under the roof, covered in hardware cloth and never closed. It comes to 2.4 square feet, about 86 square inches for each of four hens.
You’ll see “1 square foot of vent per 10 square feet of floor” repeated everywhere. It has no published source. What does exist is per bird: Oregon State’s PNW 307 puts a laying hen’s air need at 8 cubic feet a minute above 75 F, more than three times its cold-weather figure. That jump is why the second window earns its place in July. The ventilation guide covers the rest.
What this design deliberately does not do
It doesn’t hold a fifth hen. The run is the first thing to run out, and adding a bird puts it under 5 square feet each.
It isn’t a walk-in and it doesn’t pretend to be. 36-inch walls keep the building low, cheap and easy to frame, and that’s the whole design brief. If you want to stand up inside, you’re looking at the walk-in family and a very different budget.
It doesn’t move. It sits on 10 pier blocks and seven ground-contact posts. If you want the flock on fresh grass every few days, the 6x10 A-frame tractor houses up to six hens for less money, with the trade-offs a tractor always carries.
And it’s framed to published span tables, not a stamped structural design. The free preview PDF and everything on this page cost nothing. The full 40-page plan book with every wall on its own sheet is $4.99 on Etsy.