In this guide we will try to help you select the right coop for you and our chickens. If you would like more individual help please use the “Contact Us” link at the bottom of the home page and we’ll be in touch.
At the end of this article you’ll find a grid to help you choose the right coop as well as review videos on each of the model which give ou a closer look.
The maximum number of hens
This is a great place to start. How many hens are you likely to keep? Remember chicken math is real so you might start with two hens and end up with eight. It’s perfectly normal and happens to the best of us.
It’s important that your hens are not overcrowded in the coop. Hens that are overcrowded can oveheat in summer months and it also leads to the build up excess condensation and potentially mould as a result.
All of our coop listings show that maximum number of hens for a standard egg laying hybrid or Warren breed. You can have more if you have bantams e.g. Pekins, or less if you have very large fowl e.g. Brahmas.
Many people worry that if they buy a coop rated for more chickens than they have, they will be cold. To help you, it’s not possible for a chicken to have too much coop space, only too little. They keep themselves warm by heating the air trapped in their down feathers under the contour feathers. If it’s a colder night they will huddle together to use each others body warmth, but they don’t heat the space in the coop to stay warm. On very cold winter nights, you can help them stay warm by adding a hot water bottle wrapped in an old towel underneath the perch. The hot water bottle won’t stay warm all night, but it will give a sufficient boost when the hens go to roost, to trap more warm air in the chickens down feathers.
Coop Entrance
Some coops have a ramp and others have steps. Ramps are the best choice of you’re not sure which breeds you might keep in the coops over their lifetime. Steps can be used and accessed by many breeds but you should consider if they are appropriate if you plan to keep very large breeds, some bantam breeds with short legs, older arthritic hens or small chicks.
Droppings Tray Availabilty
Dropping trays can make a deep clean of your coops very easy. If you plan to clear your coop bedding once a week or fortnight, dropping trays are very helpful.
However, if (like we do), you plan to clear droppings in a daily “poop pick” with a monthly deep clean, droppings trays are less important.
Cleaning Hatch Accessibility
Access to be able to clean the coop is something to consider. All of the coops that we sell provide good access but in some coops you can remove an entire wall to access the coop. If you have movement issues, this can be very important and should factor into your decision.
Nestbox and hatch access
Most of our coops need you to remove lynch pins to take the nestbox lid or cleaning hatch off the coops. For most circumstances, this is not a problem. However, there are some circumstances where it might be useful to have a one-handed latch system. For example, if you are on your own and open the clean out hatch to lift a chicken out of the coop, you’re going to need to be able to put the clean out hatch back in place without putting the chicken down.
If this is not a regular occurrence or, you will not be on your own, this is not a consideration.
Reversible Nestbox
Some manufacturers have designed their coops so that nestbox can be fitted to either the left or the right of the coop door but this is not alwas the case. If it’s important to you that the nestbox is sited at a different side to the illustration, choose one of the coops that will allow you to do this e.g. Chick’A or ChickenGuard.
Wheels for easy Moving
For most people, they will select a spot for their chicken coop and it won’t move. To be fair, that’s us! For others, they want to ensure that their hens are moved to fresh ground on a regular basis. If this is you, we do have some models with wheels which make moving the coops much easier.
Shelter
Some coops are raised which allow for an area that can be used as a shelter undeneath. This is important if your hens have a restricted space to live in, or if shelter is a concern. This space can be used to provide rain and/or wind protection for your chickens if their options to stay dry and out of the wind are limited.
Higher Height
Do you have a bad back that makes leaning over a problem? If you do, a higher height coop is much better for you. It will reduce the risk of pain, but higher coops genreally come with steps for access not ramps, so as mentioned under “Coop Entrance”, it could restrict the type of hens that you keep.
If you want a reasonable compromise, the Nestera Lodge raises the height of the coop and although there will be some bending down to clean the coop, but it still has a ramp to access the inside.
