Whether in rural or urban areas, a small chicken coop can be useful if you only want to raise a few birds. Before you construct a chicken coop, it can be helpful to know how many chickens you might want to keep in it. The homemade chicken coop should also have a place for the hens to nest and additional space overhead for them to roost. Look for an area to place food and water in that is away from the nesting area because chickens do not like to eat close to where they lay eggs.
You may want to gather eggs from your small chicken coop on a daily basis. In this case, you will want a chicken coop that makes it easy to do this. Look for a model with a hatch on the outside of the coop so you will not need to enter the hen house in order to remove the eggs. If this hatch is around 4 feet (1.2 m) high, you may not need to bend over while doing this, so gathering the eggs can be done easily and quickly.
It can be a good idea to choose a small chicken coop that is somewhat elevated. This is because doing so may help protect your hens from predators such as foxes because it can be difficult for them to get into the henhouse. For added protection, you may want to enclose the area underneath the homemade chicken coop with wire mesh fencing in order to protect your chickens.
You will need to clean your small chicken coop from time to time, so it is important to find a model that makes this easy to do. If you open the access door, you can get an idea of whether you may need to go inside this house in order to remove droppings. Finding one that you can sweep while standing on the outside of it is a good idea because you will not need to worry about getting your feet dirty while you are doing this.
Some people like to move a small chicken coop to a different location each season. If this is something you may want to do, it can be helpful to find a model on wheels. You may want to try moving the henhouse before you buy it in order to see if it is difficult to do. It is also a good idea to find out if one of these chicken coops can be temporarily anchored into the ground so it will not move on its own.