Three people on their backyard chicken coops (and how much they cost)

When I convinced my boyfriend we needed chickens about six months ago, I thought building a coop would be easy and relatively cheap.

While I adore our now-complete henhouse, it ended up costing about $2,000 upfront (we'd budgeted $500) even though we used mostly second-hand materials.

We've also had to make several costly modifications since then to make it harder for predators and rodents to get in.

It got me thinking: how much have other chicken people spent building their coops? What did they learn in the process? And are store-bought coops ever a good option?

I asked three people about their henhouse do's and don'ts.

Mandy Watts' backyard coop is only used for sleeping. It cost $500 to build — 14 years ago!

Mandy has 11 bantams at the moment, having started off with just two Isa Browns in her Toowoomba backyard in regional Queensland over a decade ago.

"We had an old shed up the back of the yard and decided to build the coop onto that, because the structure was already there. It was big enough for me to be able to walk in, making it easier to clean," Mandy says.

"It took us four full days to get it all up and running. The coop — which is only for sleeping as my chickens free-range all day — is about two metres by three metres inside.

"By the time we bought galvanised iron posts from a demolition yard and the chicken wire and corrugated iron for the roof, all second-hand, we'd spent $500."

Like me, Mandy had to spend more money afterwards on more appropriate wire mesh.

"Another thing I didn't consider was the weather and coop positioning," Mandy continues. 

To help her chickens make it through the Queensland summer, Mandy had to erect shade cloths and put water misters on the roof of her coop. She's also growing a vine over it for added coverage.

With time, Mandy realised all of her chickens wanted to use the same nesting box even though their original coop design included three, so she and her husband built a longer one without partitions and with curtains along the front for privacy.

They've also changed their perches, bringing them lower, since silkies like to either sleep on a pile or just slightly above the floor. And she lowered the other chickens' perches after realising rising hot air was making the highest perches particularly stuffy over summer.

"That's another thing I'd do differently — I'd add more ventilation."

Jane Woollard went the prefab route after her flock endured a quoll attack

Based just outside of Launceston in northern Tasmania, Jane and her partner live with three delightful Polish chickens.

"I did have a lot more, but about two years ago one was mysteriously killed by something while free-ranging, and then about a year and a half ago a quoll killed three of them overnight," she says.

"It was a scene of carnage."

Shaken, Jane and her husband decided build a new coop dubbed "Fort Knox", featuring a concrete floor in the house and run. When finished, their new coop will have a timber frame and will be clad in corrugated iron.

They're looking to use recycled materials and expect the build will cost about $300.

In the meantime, they've moved their chickens to a new $250 prefabricated coop.

"It's an A-frame shape and has little nesting boxes and is fine for three small hens, but it's not very big," Jane says.

And while it's not her girls' forever home, "it's kept them very safe at night," Jane says with relief.

Erin Steiner has built a chicken village over the last four years, with each coop an improvement on the last

Erin got a dozen fertilised chicken eggs to try hatching in an incubator not long after moving to a property in Wollombi, in NSW's lower Hunter Valley, in 2019.

She's had to build something of a chicken village to house her ever-growing flock and has improved her coop design with every new one that goes up.

"I've got about 20 coops now. Each of them cost between $700 and $1,000 to make," Erin says.

"I build them with corrugated metal walls and externally treated solid timber posts because my place is in a flood area."

Erin lets different batches of chickens free-range at different times throughout the day to keep fighting at a minimum. This means each standalone coop is big enough for the chickens in them to stay inside for most of the day.

Predator protection was also a big design concern: "In this area, you've got everything to worry about from snakes and foxes to goannas, owls, hawks and eagles," Erin says.

She has guardian dogs to watch over her flock, and her coops feature wire buried underground to stop rodents from digging in. The walls are made up of a combination of corrugated metal (which helps discourage mites) and fox-proof wire, and her coops are enclosed at the roof.

"There are heaps of nesting boxes … and I've got a special place for broody hens to go and hatch out eggs away from the others."

All this room and thoughtful design means Erin's never had issues with aggression towards chicks, new arrivals or general squabbling despite having such a big flock.

"It also helps with disease control," she adds.