Our old portable henhouse in autumn. It's looking pretty good for over 3 years old and being dragged all over our farm; you can see one piece of siding that is missing. (Post Script from 2008: it's now 9 years old and looks the same as above, maybe a little more silvery in color.)
The skids are resting on boards that we move with the henhouse to prolong the life of the skids. The man-door is to the left of the pop hole. The extra board across the pop hole was installed after we found our sheep sticking their heads inside to eat the chicken feed, back when we used to keep the henhouse with the sheep. The ramp goes up to a 2nd floor roosting area with 2 dowels at different heights for the hens and rooster. The area below the roost is covered and houses 3 nest boxes and the metal feeder. Below is the back side of our henhouse; you can see the drop-down door at the bottom, which accesses the three nest boxes for egg gathering. The double doors above access the roost area for cleaning.
Our Buff Orpington rooster and my cat face off.
The drop down door closes with a metal latch on each side. The double doors above close with one metal latch, and has 2 wooden "latches" that swivel to give the doors additional stability.
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Our henhouse is 4 feet by 12 feet, and built on skids, to allow it to be towed from pasture to pasture with a truck or tractor. The skids are resting on lumber that we move with the henhouse to prolong the life of the skids. The roof is galvanized metal, with 2 panels that are white fiberglass, one over the roost and the other over the open area, to allow some daylight in for those few days the chickens are kept locked up. Now I would do it differently; as every time the full moon comes from behind a cloud, our rooster wakes up and starts crowing! The back end has a drop down door to allow eggs to be gathered from the nest boxes, as well as 2 doors above that open up to allow inspection of the roost area and periodic cleaning. This henhouse was build from "found" materials left over from old buildings on our property; the only items we purchased were the hinges and the chicken wire.
Please don't write asking for building plans for this henhouse; we don't have any! I have given the floor dimensions, and once the frame was up, we measure and built from that. This henhouse was built from a need we had and our combined efforts, ideas and inspiration. We might do it differently next time. There are many different hen houses and portable hen houses pictured online and in chicken books. Collect as many ideas as you can and design the perfect henhouse for your own flock and your own situation! If you come up with something that works well, please publish photos and a description, so that others might benefit from your experience!
I get lots of calls about this, and no, I do not use a light for heating the henhouse in winter. I leave the pop-hole open during the day and the chickens can return to their shelter whenever they like. The smaller dimensions of the roost upstairs combined with the body heat of about a dozen or more chickens keeps them warm. However, we did design this so that we can lock up the flock for a few days if we get an ice storm. If you live in a severe climate, you might want to check with chicken owners in your area, but also think about how things were done before electricity... they may have needed a heavier-duty system than this one, but their chickens stayed warm inside a barn or henhouse without a light bulb!
