The name says walk-in; the spec data says tall reach-in
Be clear about what you’re buying before anything else. This plan carries the walk-in name because its walls are 72 inches tall, six feet at the low side, with the shed roof rising another 18 inches toward the back. That’s a big jump from a reach-in box.
Our own plan data still classes this building as a “tall reach-in,” and the framing steps call its opening an access panel, not a walk-in door. It’s 32 inches wide by 70 inches tall. Most people step through it with a slight dip. Once you’re in, a shorter adult stands straight and a taller one works with a bit of a stoop near the low front wall.
The real walk-in threshold in this family is the 8x8. That’s where the walls go to 76 inches and the opening becomes a 34 by 74 inch walk-in door. The gap is four inches of wall and four of doorway. If you’re under six feet, you may never notice it. If you’re over, it’s the four inches you’ll hit your head on.
Same floor as the standard 6x8, so what’s the extra money for?
This is the comparison most people never make, because the two plans sit on different pages. The standard 6x8 and this walk-in have identical coop floor: 37 square feet. Same three nest boxes on a 45-inch bank, same 3.3 square feet of vent, same seven joists.
Here’s what the walk-in version changes:
- Walls go from 54 to 72 inches, and the access panel from 52 to 70 tall. Eighteen more inches of wall and doorway is the entire point. Scraping, refilling and catching a bird all happen at chest height instead of on your knees.
- The run grows from 48 to 60 square feet. It’s a 6x10 run against a 6x8, and it’s 92 inches tall inside, so you walk the run standing up.
- Roost goes from 90 to 100 inches, which is what lets the capacity tick up from 9 hens to 10.
- Floor clearance drops from 20 to 12 inches. That’s the give-back. Less shaded ground under the coop and a shorter ramp to the pop door.
For $200-$300 more in materials and about four more hours of build time, you get a coop you can service standing. On a per-hen basis the walk-in is actually the cheaper of the two at the low end: $290 a bird at ten hens against $300 a bird at nine for the standard plan.
What it costs against the plans either side
| Plan | Coop floor | Run | Hens | Walls | Build time | Materials |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4x8 shed coop | 23 sq ft | 32 sq ft | 4–6 | 48” | 16–24 hrs | $2,250–$2,900 |
| 6x8 standard coop | 37 sq ft | 48 sq ft | 6–9 | 54” | 26–34 hrs | $2,700–$3,450 |
| 6x8 walk-in (this one) | 37 sq ft | 60 sq ft | 7–10 | 72” | 30–38 hrs | $2,900–$3,750 |
| 6x10 walk-in | 47 sq ft | 72 sq ft | 9–12 | 72” | 36–44 hrs | $3,200–$4,100 |
| 8x8 walk-in | 51 sq ft | 80 sq ft | 10–13 | 76” | 40–52 hrs | $3,200–$4,100 |
Read the bottom two rows together. The 6x10 and the 8x8 cost the same, and both are about $300-$350 above this plan. So “should I go bigger” isn’t really a $300 question. It’s a question about whether you want more birds, a true walk-in door, or neither.
This is the entry ticket to the walk-in family: the lowest material cost and the shortest build time of any plan in it.
Seven hens is the comfortable number
The range is 7 to 10. Plan the coop around seven and treat ten as what it holds on a good year.
At 7 hens each bird gets 5.3 square feet of coop floor and 8.6 square feet of run. The run figure lands inside the 8-10 square feet per bird that extension services recommend for outdoor space, so a flock of seven can live in this footprint without needing free-range time to stay sane.
At 10 hens it’s 3.7 square feet of coop and 6 of run. The coop number still clears the 3-4 square feet Oregon State and Virginia Tech publish for a coop with an attached run. The run number doesn’t clear the outdoor guideline, so ten birds need to get out of the pen regularly.
The nest boxes hold up at either end. Three boxes for seven hens is one per 2.3 birds, and for ten it’s one per 3.3. Both sit comfortably inside the one-box-per-four-or-five-hens ceiling the welfare standards use. The size calculator will run your exact number.
A 6-foot-wide building fits where the others don’t
The overall footprint is 216 inches by 72: 18 feet long, 6 feet wide, coop and run together. That’s about 108 square feet of ground.
Six feet of width is the underrated feature here. It fits between a garage and a fence line, down the side of a house, or along a back property line where an 8-foot-wide coop would crowd the setback. The 8x8 walk-in is the same 18 feet long but two feet wider, and in a tight side yard two feet is the whole difference between fitting and not.
On permits, 108 square feet of ground sits well under the 200 square feet IRC R105.2 exempts. It’s just over the strictest local thresholds of 100 square feet, though, if your town counts the run as part of the structure. Most don’t count an open run, but check before you assume. The permit guide explains how building permits and zoning setbacks split.
Intermediate means four to five real days
The plan budgets 30 to 38 hours across four to five days, with 31 material line items and 18 steps. That’s a step up from the Beginner-rated 4x8 shed coop, mostly because the taller walls mean longer studs, more siding and a run you can walk into.
The material list gives you a sense of scale. Seventy-two 8-foot 2x4s, eight sheets of 3/4-inch plywood, 29 pieces of lap siding covering about 196 square feet of wall, and five 8-foot metal roof panels. The hardware cloth comes to 129 feet of quarter-inch wire, with 516 fender washers to hang it.
None of that is exotic. It’s just a lot of repetition, and the hardware cloth day is the one people underestimate. Fastening 129 feet of wire with a washer every few inches is slow work, and it’s also the part that decides whether the coop keeps predators out.
When to skip this one and go straight to a bigger plan
Skip it if you already know you want more than ten hens. The 6x10 walk-in carries nine to twelve on the same 6-foot width, so it still fits the narrow site.
Skip it if you’re tall and the whole point is never stooping again. The 72-inch low wall is under a lot of people’s height. The 8x8 gives you 76-inch walls and a 34 by 74 inch walk-in door for about $300-$350 more, and for a six-footer with a bad back that extra headroom is the thing you actually wanted.
Skip it if you’re in serious winter country and plan to insulate. This is an uninsulated design, and the climate question is bigger than the coop size. The climate guide covers what changes by region.
Otherwise, for a flock of seven or eight in a narrow yard, this is the least money in the walk-in family that gets you out of the kneeling position.