6x8 Walk-In Shed Coop with 6x10 Run Plans

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. Rafters are 2x6 rather than 2x4: a shed rafter spans the full 72" in one piece, which puts a 2x4 right at its limit under a 30 psf snow load.

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.

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 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, 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, comfortably above the 6-inch minimum the extension services set. 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 bars 18 to 24 inches off the floor, 10 to 12 inches apart, and at least 8 inches off the wall. 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.