4x8 Lean-To Chicken Coop Plans for 4-6 Hens (Free PDF)

Four 4x4 posts cut to 72-3/4" carry the structure from grade to the top plate. Setting the floor 14" up keeps the frame out of ground moisture and hands the flock the shaded space underneath.

The base ring ties the four posts into a rigid square at grade. Use the 4-inch screws here — this joint carries the racking load for the life of the coop.

Joists sit 14" above grade on 16" centres, running the short direction across 42" in 2x6, with the rim doubled on all four sides. At 42" the 2x6 joists span well inside the 8 ft 4 in that AWC DCA6 Table 2 allows at 16-inch centres, so no intermediate girder is needed. Crown every joist up before you fasten it. Where the datum is. Every height in this set is measured from the TOP OF THE PIER BLOCK — the surface the posts actually stand on, not the soil. Set the blocks first, level them to each other with a string line, and treat that plane as zero. If the blocks sit 4in proud of the dirt the finished coop is 4in taller than the numbers here, which is fine; measuring one post from the block and the next from the ground is not. Fixing the floor frame to the posts. This is the joint everything above stands on and it is the one most plans leave to guesswork. Build the rim rectangle first, square it to the diagonals, then drop it over the four posts so the rim sits ON the base ring and CLOSES the outside face of each post. Fasten each corner with two 4in structural screws driven through the rim into the post, one 1-1/2in down from the top of the rim and one 1-1/2in up from the bottom, offset from each other so they are not in the same grain line. Eight screws in total, four corners. Predrill — a 4in screw close to the end of a 2x6 will split it otherwise.

Deck the floor in 3/4" plywood, notched 3-1/2" square at each corner so it drops cleanly around the posts. Fasten with 1-1/2 inch screws every 8 inches on the joists.

Every wall is framed FLAT ON THE DECK and then stood up. That is the whole trick: you are working on a level surface, gravity holds the parts where you put them, and you can push the frame square before a single screw goes in. Studs run 16" on centre so 4-foot sheet goods break on a stud. Build order matters. Front wall, back wall, then the two end walls. The long walls go up first and get braced to the deck; the end walls then drop between them and lock the box square. If you stand a short wall first it has nothing to brace against. Every wall gets three plates: a bottom plate, a top plate, and a cap plate over the top. The cap plate is not a second top plate for strength — it is there to LAP the corner. Hold the long walls' cap plate back 1-1/2" at BOTH ends, and run the end walls' cap 1-1/2" long at BOTH ends. On this coop that is a 86" cap on a 89" long wall and a 44" cap on an 41" end wall. The end-wall caps then run over the long-wall caps at all four corners and tie the walls into one ring. A butt joint at every corner is a box that racks. Cut the bottom plate CONTINUOUS through every door opening. Frame it, stand it, brace it, and only then saw the plate out of the doorway with a handsaw. It is what keeps the wall square while you move it.

The low side and the ONLY long wall there is. It carries the access panel and both windows. The roof falls TOWARD this wall and sheds over it, away from whatever the ledger is bolted to. Plate length 89". Openings: window 18" x 23", access panel 30" x 46", window 18" x 23". 35 pieces in this wall. Every dimension on the drawing runs from the LEFT end of the plate to a stud CENTRE. Mark the whole plate out before you cut anything — lay the bottom and top plate side by side, square across both at once, and you cannot get the two out of step.

The run attaches to this wall and the pop door passes through it. Seen from outside, the roof runs DOWNHILL left to right — its tall end butts the ledger. Plate length 41". Openings: pop door 12" x 14". 18 pieces in this wall. Every dimension on the drawing runs from the LEFT end of the plate to a stud CENTRE. Mark the whole plate out before you cut anything — lay the bottom and top plate side by side, square across both at once, and you cannot get the two out of step.

Carries the nest bank, which lives here rather than on a back wall because there is no back wall. This wall MIRRORS the left end: seen from outside the roof runs UPHILL left to right. Plate length 41". Openings: nest bank opening 30-1/4" x 13". 22 pieces in this wall. Every dimension on the drawing runs from the LEFT end of the plate to a stud CENTRE. Mark the whole plate out before you cut anything — lay the bottom and top plate side by side, square across both at once, and you cannot get the two out of step.

This is the step the whole design turns on, and there are two versions of it. Which one you build is decided by WHAT IS ALREADY THERE, not by preference. MOUNT A — a structural wall. A house, garage, barn or shed wall with real framing behind it. The ledger bolts to that framing and carries the high edge of the roof. Top of the ledger goes 83" above grade — that is the low wall's top plate at 72-3/4" plus the 10-1/4" rake, so the ledger and the two raked end walls arrive at the same line. Fasteners: 1/2" lag screws or through-bolts, hot-dip galvanised or stainless, 16" on centre in two staggered rows — 14 of them over 8 ft. That spacing is inside IRC Table R507.9.1.3(1). Keep them 2" down from the top edge, 3/4" up from the bottom, 2" in from each end, and 1-5/8" between rows. Every fastener must reach structural framing — studs, or the rim joist. Sheathing is not an anchor. A lag tip has to pass beyond the inside face of the member it lands in. Find the studs and mark them before the ledger goes up; if you cannot find framing behind the sheathing, you do not have Mount A, you have Mount B. Gap: the ledger may stand off the wall covering, but never more than 1" — past that the code table stops applying. Standing it 1/4" clear on washers gives the drainage and ventilation gap that IRC R507.9.1.4 accepts in place of continuous flashing behind the board. Flash it anyway where the ROOF meets the wall (IRC R903.2). 4" up the wall, 4" onto the roof, vertical leg tucked UNDER the siding above — never caulked on top of it. Water that gets behind a ledger rots the framing the ledger is bolted to, and the failure is invisible until the roof moves. MOUNT B — a fence, or anything you are unsure of. A fence cannot carry this roof. Fence posts are sized for wind pushing sideways on the panels and their footings are sized for the same; nothing about them is designed for a roof hanging off them, and the building code has no prescriptive path for it at all. A 4x4 at 8 ft centres in 24-30in of soil is not a structural post. So the high edge carries ITSELF: two 4x4 posts 30" in the ground, standing 2" clear of the fence face, with a 2x6 beam across them at the same 83". The coop is then freestanding and the fence is a windbreak and a screen. Build Mount B if the fence is shared or your neighbour's — attaching to that is a property problem before it is a building problem, and no inspector will pass it. Load, so you can see the margin: this ledger carries about 104.1 lb per foot (half the roof plane at 30 psf snow + 10 psf dead). The IRC table the spacing comes from is calibrated to a 50 psf deck over spans up to 16 ft — several hundred lb per foot. We are inside it by a wide margin and we use the deck spacing as written rather than inventing a lighter rule nobody publishes.

A single-slope roof at 3:12 — 12" of fall across the 48" depth. That is not a round number chosen for looks: 3:12 is the minimum slope IRC R905.10.2 permits for exposed-fastener corrugated metal with no sealant at the laps, and 48in of depth at 3:12 is 12in of fall exactly. Build it shallower and the roofing on the materials list is no longer legal on it — water climbs back up through the lap by capillary action. The roof falls AWAY from the ledger. Everything it sheds lands in front of the coop, not against the wall it is bolted to. There is no ridge and no opposing rafter pair, so there is no outward thrust and no rafter tie is required — the load goes straight down onto the ledger at the high end and the front wall at the low end. Rafters are 2x6: one piece across the full 48".

3/4" plywood over the rafters, then corrugated metal sheets. Metal over shingles because it sheds snow, lasts decades and never needs a tear-off. Lap the sheets one full corrugation.

Lap siding in 9-foot courses, starting from a level chalk line at the bottom and working up. Each course laps the one below by 1 inch. Leave the window and door openings proud and trim after. STOP THE BACK WALL 5-1/2" SHORT OF THE CAP PLATE. Every other wall runs its top course tight to the plate. The back wall does not, and this is the one place on the building where following the obvious instruction ruins it. The top bay of that wall is the continuous vent strip — 5-1/2" x 86", 3.3 sq ft, the whole permanent ventilation of this coop. Snap a second chalk line 5-1/2" below the underside of the cap plate and let the last course die on it. Hardware cloth goes over the gap in step 12; it is never glazed, never blocked and never closed for winter. A coop sided tight all round is a sealed box, and a sealed box in January is wet, then ammoniated, then a respiratory problem.

Every opening you framed in step 5 now gets something to close it. Cut each slab a quarter inch smaller than its rough opening on all four sides — 3/4in plywood swells in the wet and a door cut to the exact opening size will bind by November. Then close that gap with a stop. A quarter inch is the clearance the door needs and it is also, exactly, the gap this plan tells you a least weasel fits through. Run a 1x2 stop around the inside of every door opening so the slab closes against it and the gap is blocked, not open. On the pop door, staple a strip of hardware cloth behind the stop as well. Access panel on the front wall (low eave): slab 29-1/2" x 45-1/2" in a 30" x 46" opening — a 1/4in gap all round. 3 hinges, out, hinged on the left as you face it from outside. Pop door on the left end wall (run end): slab 11-1/2" x 13-1/2" in a 12" x 14" opening — a 1/4in gap all round. 2 hinges, out, hinged on the left as you face it from outside. Every plywood door over 30in tall gets a Z-brace on the back: a rail top and bottom and one diagonal running from the bottom hinge corner up to the top latch corner. That diagonal is in compression and it is the only thing stopping the door sagging into a parallelogram. Run it the wrong way and it does nothing. Hinge side and swing. All doors here swing OUT, hinged on the left as you face them from outside. Out, because a door that opens inward sweeps the bedding and gets blocked by it; left, so every latch on the coop is in the same place and you are not hunting for it in the dark with an armful of feed.

An exterior nest bank 30-1/4" long and 17 inches deep, hung off the side wall with a hinged lid. 2 compartments — one per three to four hens. Collecting eggs from outside means you never disturb a sitting bird.

The pop-door slab was already cut in step 8b to fit the opening you framed in step 5c — do not cut another one. This step hangs it and builds the ramp. Measure the ramp drop on site. It runs from the pop-door sill, 24-1/4" above grade, down to the FINISHED run surface — which is the sand or drain rock you placed in step 11, not bare ground. On a level site that is about 47-1/2" of ramp at a comfortable angle, but cut it to what you measure, not to what is printed here.

The 4 ft x 8 ft screened run frames off the coop wall, 70" tall. 3 posts a side on roughly 4-foot centres, with a top rail and a mid rail so the hardware cloth has something to fasten to at every course. The mid rail goes at 32 inches, not higher — the cloth comes off a 36-inch roll, so a course run up from the ground reaches 36 inches and has to land ON a rail with a lap to spare. Set the run posts the same way you set the coop posts in step 1 — on the same pier blocks, at the same height, checked with the same string line. A run on a different footing system than the coop it hangs off will move against it and open a gap at the joint, which is exactly where a predator starts. Fixing the run to the coop: the two run rails that meet the coop are lag-bolted into the corner posts of the run-end wall, not screwed into siding. Two 3/8in x 4in lag bolts per rail, drilled with a 1/4in pilot, one 3in above the rail's bottom edge and one 3in below its top. Siding is a skin; it holds nothing. The run door is 33" wide — two 2x4 stiles plus 26" rails between them. Hang it in the end bay furthest from the coop so you are not squeezing past the ramp with a bucket. Purlins across the top at every post. A quarter-inch mesh roof spanning eight feet unsupported sags into a hammock and a raccoon can bear it down far enough to get a leg through. The purlins are what the roof mesh fastens to. Get the water out before you put the birds in. A run that ponds turns into mud, mud turns into the coccidiosis and bumblefoot problems that cost people their flock, and no amount of hardware cloth fixes it. Three things, in order of how much they matter: grade the run to fall away from the coop — an inch of drop for every eight feet is enough and it costs you nothing but a rake; keep the run surface above the surrounding grade, not level with it, so it sheds instead of collects; and top it with 3 to 4 inches of coarse sand or 3/8in drain rock, not topsoil and not straw. Coarse sand drains, dries fast and can be raked clean like a litter box. Do this before the apron goes in — you cannot regrade under a buried mesh skirt.

The step that decides whether you still have a flock in two years. Quarter-inch hardware cloth over every opening, screwed through fender washers rather than only stapled. Quarter-inch, not half-inch. A least weasel squeezes through a half-inch opening; quarter-inch mesh stops it. That is the whole reason for the spec (Univ. of Kentucky Extension ID-245), and half-inch mesh — while genuinely raccoon-proof — does not stop weasels, mink or snakes. Chicken wire stops nothing: a raccoon reaches straight through the hexagonal gaps. Bury a 12-inch apron down and out around the whole run perimeter, turned outward at the bottom into an L. Sources for both numbers: Univ. of Kentucky Cooperative Extension ID-245 and Virginia Cooperative Extension 2902-1092. The windows get cloth too. An open 18 x 23 window is a hole a raccoon walks through, and it is the ventilation you rely on in summer, so it has to stay open at night. Staple a panel of cloth to the INSIDE of every window opening before the unit goes in — behind the glazing, not over it, so the window still shuts on a clean frame. Same for the continuous vent strip along the top of the back wall and the nest-bank opening.

6 birds NEED 60 inches of perch at 10 inches each. Why 10 and not the 6 you have read everywhere. Six inches — 15cm — is in EU Directive 1999/74/EC, the UK Welfare of Farmed Animals Regulations, the Canadian NFACC code, the UEP and Certified Humane standards and the USDA organic rule. Eight instruments, one number, and all eight copied it from the 1999 directive. Then somebody measured a hen: Giersberg, Spindler and Kemper (2019) put a perching brown layer's body width at 14.8cm and a dual-purpose hen's at 16.0cm. At 15cm a bird has nothing to spare, so the standards that claim 6 inches lets a whole flock roost at once are wrong on their own arithmetic. EFSA's 2023 review recommends 7-1/16" per hen and that is the only figure here with evidence under it. We build to 10, which clears both. The cut list below BUILDS 82 inches — 2 bars at 41". Those are two different numbers and this plan states both, because a plan that prints the requirement and calls it the built total is contradicting its own cut table. Use a rounded or slightly flattened bearing surface 1 to 2 inches across rather than a thin dowel or a full 3-1/2 inch flat face: it spreads footpad pressure and lowers bumblefoot risk. So mount the 2x4 ON EDGE, 1-1/2 inch face up, and ease the top corners round. Laid flat it presents a 3-1/2 inch face, which is the thing the sentence above tells you to avoid — the bar is the same board either way and the plan has to say which. (One exception, and it is not yours unless you are in hard-freeze country: keepers in deep-winter climates deliberately lay the bar flat so a hen can cover her toes with her breast feathers against frostbite. Below about zone 5 that trade is not worth the footpad pressure.) Set the top of each bar 20" off the floor, 11-13/16" apart, and at least 7-7/8" off the wall. Those last two are not eyeballed: 30cm between perches at the same height and 20cm from a perch to a wall are in EU Directive 1999/74/EC and the UK Welfare of Farmed Animals Regulations, and EFSA derives the 30 from the length of a sitting hen — 15cm of her each side of the bar. Stagger them like stair treads rather than stacking them, so the birds underneath do not get rained on. No bar sits over a nest box. Directly beneath the bars goes a removable droppings board — birds put out most of a night's manure while roosting, and catching it on a board you slide out and scrape turns the daily clean into a two-minute job. Never use wire for this: droppings stick to mesh and it becomes impossible to clean.