Various types of housing
we have built for our chickens
Here are a few photos of housing we have built for our flock of chickens. The photo at right is our most recent version. Known as an "ark", this A-frame style of housing uses less wood and has less weight than a box style of housing, making it easier to move. The chickens certainly don't need the head room! Click on the photo at right for more details and photos on this style of housing.
© 2000 - 2008. Website design, text and photos are copyright by Ronda Jemtegaard unless otherwise noted.
Reproduction by any means, electronic or mechanical, is forbidden unless written request
In this age where it's now easy to clone and delete parts of photographs,
and some farmers and webmasters are doing this to published photos of their livestock,
please note that all photos on this website are unaltered in any way!
Colors, conformation, etc are exactly as depicted.
Our first versions of portable housing
were built from pallets that used to be
available at that time, which we covered
with flimsy "chicken wire" and held
together with door hinges and pins at
the corners. They were inexpensive,
but unwieldy and a pain to move. I happily
burned them when the above chicken tractor
was built! Photo of Version 1 not available.
I drew up the plans for the henhouse below in 1999, which my husband built that summer, including some of his own ideas as he did so. This is our only housing that has a floor. It was built on skids and has 2 levels with roosts above, and nest boxes and feeder below. The photo below was taken in 2002, and while one piece of siding has fallen off the henhouse, it's still in good shape after being dragged from pasture to pasture with our truck or tractor for over 3 years. Click on the photo for more detail and descriptions of this henhouse.
The style below is a box style, also with no bottom, and is one of our earliest incarnations of portable housing, using solid wood frame 3ft X 10ft, plywood roof and walls, and rabbit wire instead of chicken wire. Both roofs have hinges and lift for access to the perches at one end and feeder at the other. This tractor was retrofitted a year or two later with a pop hole at the far right, and a nest box at the left. The photo below left shows our Border Collie keeping an eye on our young Buff Orpingtons. The photo below right shows a very wet April in which I covered the wire with clear plastic to keep dry the babies that I so badly wanted OUT of my kitchen! Please note that the plastic is loosely draped so that the chicks would not overheat should the sun come out when I wasn't at home.
