There are loads of chicken coops for sale – at a price. Building your own is easy if you have a good set of chicken coop plans and instructions, whether you are a new chicken keeper and want a simple hen house, or an experienced keeper who wants a more sophisticated chicken coop

Children will love to get involved and it will be educational too. They can help you build sections, work through the instructions and look at the diagrams, learn carpentry techniques – and even build the whole chicken coop themselves if you have good chicken coop plans.

At the outset it is the size of the flock that determines the type of coop. If you have, or plan to have, about three hens, then a chicken ark would be a good choice.

Chicken arks are designed to be moved around the plot to give the chickens new ground each day. They are a triangular shape with a covered nest box and roosting space at one end attached to an open run at the other. A chicken ark should take you no more than a day to build.

A larger hen house with a run is more like a weekends work, but still based on simple shapes, so easy to build. This is your answer if you have five to seven hens. You could even build both a hen house and an ark, so you have the chicken ark to move the hens around and to use if any of them are poorly.

If you have, or plan to have, a larger flock then you will need a bigger hen house. A pitched roof design with external nest boxes would be perfect and you could site it within a run if you are not able to let your chickens free range.

To save costs even further, source some plans that include instructions and plans for building all three types of chicken coop. Then you’re all set to really save money.