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July 3rd, 2009 by KittyKitty

Portable chicken coop designs are perfect when you have just a few hens that you want to move around your yard. Also known as chicken tractors, these little coops have a small area for roosting, eating, drinking, laying eggs and foraging. Since the coop is moved every few days to a week, your chickens are getting plenty of grass and bugs to supplement their diet.

You may wonder why you would want a portable chicken coop design. Moving the chickens around keeps them safe and secure while giving them new foraging grounds. They can be moved about the yard to eat grass, bugs and add their droppings to your yard for fertilizer. You can even move some of them onto garden areas at the end of the season so your chickens can glean anything leftover from harvest. They can also be used as fertilizers to your garden. The droppings will decompose over the winter, leaving your spring garden ready to grow more luscious produce for you the next season. You’d be surprised to find out that chickens that are not moved around can reduce an area down to bare earth in less than a week in many cases. Then, it becomes a muddy every time it rains, and your chickens don’t get all that nutritious greenery to eat.

An example of a portable chicken coop design would be the ark. It is a triangular A-frame chicken coop with wide base at the bottom and the peak at the top. The ark can be made small or large. The only thing that should limit you for size is whether you can move it or not. The two-thirds of the ark is for outdoor run and one-third of it would be the coop. The coop should hold nest boxes and perches. Small openings allow the chicken out to the run. A door that can allow you to enter easily, placed on the opposite side of the coop, will also allow you to clean, gather fresh eggs and feed the chickens easily. The chicken run has a door at the end so you can easily access. Arks can be moved by attaching long poles so two people can lift and move it, or they can be hooked up to a vehicle and towed.

Another A=frame type of portable chicken coop design is the one that has top third for coop and beneath it with chicken run. The coop provides shade this way, and the chickens are able to sleep up off the ground in a protected area. Small doors at each end will allow you to clean and gather eggs conveniently. These coops are generally built to house two to four hens and are moved by hand.

Small portable chicken coop designs can also be imaginative. Build one that has wheels so it can be moved around more easily.

Portable chicken coop runs can be made from wire and PVC. You can even use a dog house as the coop itself with a few modifications to make it easy to access for egg gathering and cleaning.