6x8 Modern Chicken Coop Plans for 7-10 Hens (Free PDF)

Four 4x4 posts cut to 94-3/4" carry the structure from grade to the top plate. Setting the floor 12" 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 12" above grade on 16" centres, running the short direction across 66" in 2x6, with the rim doubled on all four sides. At 66" 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 68" cap on an 65" 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. It carries the door and most of the glazing. Plate length 89". Openings: window 18" x 23", access panel 32" x 70", 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 HIGH side — its studs are longer than the front wall's by the full rise of the roof. The nest bank hangs outside it and the vent strip runs along the top, so keep the top bay clear. Plate length 89". Openings: nest bank opening 45" 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.

The run attaches to this wall and the pop door passes through it. Seen from outside, the roof runs DOWNHILL left to right. Plate length 65". Openings: pop door 12" x 14". 21 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.

Fixed wall with a window. This wall MIRRORS the left end: seen from outside, the roof runs UPHILL left to right. Plate length 65". Openings: window 18" x 23". 25 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.

A single-slope shed roof at 3:12 — 18" of fall across the 72" width, which is the minimum pitch exposed-fastener corrugated metal will shed reliably. There is no ridge and no opposing rafter pair, so there is no outward thrust and no rafter tie is required — the load lands straight down on the two side walls. That is the quiet advantage of a shed roof over a gable, and it is why this is the simplest roof in our line to frame. Why the rafter is 2x6 and not something shallower. It spans the full 72" width in one piece with nothing under the middle of it, and at 24" centres that is what the span table allows: 2021 IRC Table R802.4.1(4), Spruce-Pine-Fir No.2, 30 psf ground snow, no ceiling attached, 10 psf dead load, gives 117" for a 2x6 — and 117" for a 2x6, which is why a 2x6 is not on this list unless the building is narrower. Span is measured on the HORIZONTAL, so the slope costs you nothing here; the width does. Deeper is not optional and shallower is not a saving, it is a sag.

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.

Read this step even if you have sided a shed before, because this is the one place a modern coop is not the standard coop with different paint. Lap siding runs horizontally, so every board crosses every stud and always has something to land on. Board-and-batten runs VERTICAL. A board landing between two studs has nothing behind it but air, and the code is explicit about what a siding nail is allowed to grab: IRC R703.3.4 requires 1-1/2 inches of penetration into studs, studs and wood sheathing combined, or blocking. Sheathing on its own is not on that list — a nail buried in 7/16 of OSB and nothing else is not a fixing, it is a nail in a biscuit. Blocking IS on the list, so that is what we use. Horizontal 1x4 furring, laid flat, 24" on centre, screwed through into every stud. Now a vertical board has continuous wood behind it at every height, anywhere along the wall. The furring also holds the siding 3/4 inch off the wall, which is a drainage gap the standard coop does not have. Leave a 2" break in each furring run every 4 feet, and stagger the breaks. Horizontal furring behind vertical siding will otherwise dam water on the top edge of each strip. The gaps let it past. House wrap goes on FIRST, behind the furring. The standard shed coop skips it legally: IRC R703.2 waives the water-resistive barrier on an unconditioned accessory building only where the wall covering is *siding attached directly to studs*. Furred siding is not attached directly to studs, so that exemption does not apply to this design and the wrap is not optional here. Lap it 6 inches horizontally, shingle-style — upper sheet OVER lower, never the other way round.

28 vertical boards, laid out symmetrically on every wall: full 11-1/4" boards through the middle and a ripped board of the SAME width at each end. Not full boards from one corner with the offcut at the other — on a wall this short the leftover sliver is the first thing anyone sees, and a modern elevation is nothing but the rhythm of these lines. The BATTEN LAYOUT page draws every board and every batten on both wall types — work from it alongside this table. Front wall (low eave) — clear width 89": 6 full boards at 11-1/4", plus an end board ripped to 9" at EACH end. 7 battens at 11-3/4" on centre. Square wall: every board is 84-1/4". Back wall (high eave) — clear width 89": 6 full boards at 11-1/4", plus an end board ripped to 9" at EACH end. 7 battens at 11-3/4" on centre. Square wall: every board is 95". Left end wall (run end) — clear width 65": 4 full boards at 11-1/4", plus an end board ripped to 8-3/4" at EACH end. 5 battens at 11-3/4" on centre. This wall is raked, so every board is a different length — see the table. Right end wall — clear width 65": 4 full boards at 11-1/4", plus an end board ripped to 8-3/4" at EACH end. 5 battens at 11-3/4" on centre. This wall is raked, so every board is a different length — see the table. Gap the boards 1/2" apart. That gap is not sloppiness and it is not optional. It is where the batten nail goes, and it is the room the board needs to swell in July. Butt them tight and the boards will cup or split against each other by the second summer. Two nails per bearing, about 3 inches apart, both toward the CENTRE of the board. Boards 8 inches and wider get two; ours are nearly twelve. Both nails stay near the middle so the board is pinned along one line and is free to move at its edges. Nailing near the edges locks both sides down and the board splits down the middle instead. The BACK wall is 5-1/2" shorter than the others, and that is not a mistake. The whole permanent ventilation of this coop is the open bay along the top of that wall — hardware cloth over it in step 12, never glazed, never blocked, 3.3 sq ft of it. Run the boards to the plate like the other three walls and you have just sealed the only air the birds get. Stop them at the length in the table, and fit a strip of Z-flashing on the top edge of the last board so water running down the wall is thrown clear of the opening instead of into it. Prime all six faces before a single board goes on the wall, including both cut ends. The USDA Forest Products Laboratory found back-priming and end-grain sealing to be what actually stops paint failure on wood siding, and a dark colour makes the wall hotter and the cycling worse. This is the single cheapest thing in the plan and it is the one people skip.

24 battens, one centred over every gap. 3-1/2" of 1x4 over a 1/2" gap laps 1-1/2" onto each board. The batten nail goes through the GAP, not through the boards. One nail per bearing, the shank passing down the middle between the two board edges and into the furring behind. This is the rule the whole detail exists for. Nail the batten through the boards and you have pinned two boards and a batten together across the grain: the boards still swell, they now cannot move, and they split — or they pull the batten off. A board-and-batten wall that is coming apart is almost always a wall where somebody nailed the battens through the boards. Lap matters as much as gap. The cedar association's rule is at least 1/2 inch of cover on each board edge for a nominal 6 board, increased proportionally as boards get wider — on a 11-1/4" board that scales to 1", and a 1x4 batten gives 1-1/2". That margin is why this plan uses 1x4 battens and not the 1x2 you will see on cheaper builds: a 1x2 over this board is under the rule.

Minimal on purpose. One flat 1x4 at each corner, one flat 1x4 casing round each opening, and nothing else — no frieze, no water table, no corner moulding, no decorative brackets. Everything this style is doing, it is doing with the rhythm of the battens and the contrast of the trim, and every extra profile you add works against both. The corner boards go on FIRST and the siding butts into them. A 1x4 shows 3-1/2", which is exactly the face of the 4x4 corner post behind it — the post is covered, the siding stops on a clean line, and no board has to be scribed round a corner. On each corner one leg laps the other's edge, so one face reads 3-1/2" and its neighbour 2-3/4". Point the wider face at whatever you look at from the house. Two colours, and only two. Body dark — charcoal or true black. Trim, casings, corner boards and fascia black. Hardware black: hinges, latches, handles, the pop-door track. The whole look is one dark field cut by black lines, and a third colour anywhere on it reads as a mistake. Buy 3 gal of exterior primer and 3 gal of body colour. The primer figure is double what the wall area suggests because you are priming the backs too, and it assumes the pessimistic end of the published coverage band for rough-sawn wood — running out of a custom dark tint halfway down a wall leaves a lap mark that never sands out. 100% acrylic exterior, two finish coats over primer. On dark colours. You will read that siding below LRV 25 voids a warranty. That is a fiber-cement manufacturer's rule, it is repeated far more often than it is sourced, and this coop is clad in wood — it does not apply and this plan does not restrict your colour. What IS real on dark wood is heat and moisture cycling, and the answer to that is the one in step 8b: back-prime every face, seal every cut end. Do that and dark is just a colour.

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 31-1/2" x 69-1/2" in a 32" x 70" 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 45" long and 17 inches deep, hung off the side wall with a hinged lid. 3 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 8e 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, 22-1/4" 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 43-1/16" of ramp at a comfortable angle, but cut it to what you measure, not to what is printed here.

The 6 ft x 10 ft screened run frames off the coop wall, 92" 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.

10 birds NEED 100 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 147 inches — 3 bars at 49". 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. 49" of bar does not hold itself up. Each bar gets 1 leg(s) under it at 24-1/2", so no length of bar spans more than 48" between supports. A roost bar is a 2x4 on edge, and no span table published anywhere lists a 2x4 in bending — which is the same reason the floor under you is framed in 2x6. Wall cleats at the two ends are the whole support on the smaller coops in this line and they are not enough here. 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.