A walk-in coop is a hen house you can step into and stand up straight in. Most are a garden shed or a shed-style coop with roosts and nest boxes inside, plus a small pop door for the birds. If you’re sick of cleaning on your knees, it’s the upgrade I’d make before any other.
Below are the numbers that make one work. How many hens fit in a 6×8, 8×8, 8×10 or 10×12. How wide the door has to be. Where the roosts and nests go, and what a shed needs before a raccoon gets bored with it and leaves.
I keep twelve hens and one bad-tempered rooster. Cleaning is the chore that decides whether a coop stays healthy, and the coop you have to crawl into is the one that gets cleaned last.
Why a Coop You Can Stand In Gets Cleaned More
The extension guides agree on this one, and they say it plainly. Oregon State’s coop design guide says to “build the coop so you can go in and out comfortably and easily clean all areas,” and it figures a well-built coop is easy to keep up with weekly cleanings. Penn State tells you to “build the roof high enough” and to place the nests and roosts (feeders too) so every corner is easy to clean.
Weekly is the key word. A low coop gets you down on frozen bedding in January with a hand rake, and honestly, that’s the week you skip. Stand up, and the same job is a flat shovel and a wheelbarrow (plus a fork for the clumps). You’ll do it every week because it’s not miserable.
You also get a room that holds your stuff. Feed and spare shavings can live inside the same door, along with the scraper and the winter waterer, so a trip to the coop is one trip.
There are costs. A walk-in coop takes more lumber and more ground. It holds more air you have to move without blowing it on the birds. A tall room also tempts hens to roost way up high, and that’s hard on their legs when they jump down.
How Many Hens Fit in a 6×8, 8×8, 8×10 or 10×12
Start with Oregon State’s numbers. It wants at least 3 square feet per bird inside the coop when the flock has a run or a yard to go out to. With no outdoor access at all, it’s 8 to 10 square feet per bird. That’s a big gap, and the run is what decides which number you use.
Here’s how that works out on four common shed sizes:
- 6×8 is 48 square feet: 16 hens with a run, 4 to 6 without one.
- 8×8 is 64 square feet: 21 hens with a run, 6 to 8 without.
- 8×10 is 80 square feet: 26 hens with a run, 8 to 10 without.
- 10×12 is 120 square feet: 40 hens with a run, 12 to 15 without.
Now take some floor back for yourself. Two metal feed cans, a bale of shavings and a spot to stand while you fill the feeder eat a corner, and I’d call that corner 8 square feet. On a 6×8 that leaves 40 square feet, or 13 hens at 3 apiece. On an 8×8 it leaves 56, which is 18 hens.
If you want to run your own numbers, the coop size calculator does it from your flock size. And if you’re still picking a style, my chicken coop ideas post puts the walk-in shed next to a small coop with a run and a coop you move around the yard.
Turning a Garden Shed Into a Walk-In Coop
A garden shed is built to keep rain off a mower. It’s tight on purpose, and a coop needs the opposite up high. That’s most of the work, plus a door for the hens and covers on everything a predator could push through.
Vents up high. Oregon State says air moves through windows in the walls or vents up high (in the gables or under the eaves), and that passive ventilation is enough for most backyard coops. Penn State adds two rules worth taping to the wall. Put the openings on the side away from the prevailing wind, and never right over the roost, because a draft on sleeping birds is what you’re trying to avoid.
Cover every opening. Penn State says windows and doors have to be covered with heavy-gauge mesh wire or screening whenever they’re open. I use half-inch hardware cloth on vents and windows. Chicken wire keeps chickens in. It doesn’t keep a raccoon’s hand out.
A pop door and a ramp. Cut a small door for the birds so you aren’t propping the big one open all day. Penn State wants ramps with traction: slats spaced three inches apart, or a textured top like a roofing shingle.
Sliding windows. A window that swings in or out is a perch. Penn State says to use sliding windows so the birds can’t roost on them.
Hide the insulation. If the shed came with foam board or spray foam, cover it. Penn State warns that hens will pick at and eat insulation if they can reach it, foam board included.
Floors and Doors That Pass the Wheelbarrow Test
The floor is where a walk-in coop pays you back or doesn’t. Penn State’s advice for a new building is a concrete floor, with the wall started on one or two courses of concrete block. That stops rats and snakes (and anything else that digs) from coming up under the walls. Oregon State says a concrete slab or solid wood both work.
Then tilt it. Both guides want a sloped floor, and Penn State says to slope it slightly toward the door, so it drains when you hose it out and doesn’t puddle in the back corner.
Doors open outward. Oregon State says so because it makes the corners easier to clean, and anyone who’s tried to swing a door in against a foot of old bedding knows the other reason.
Now the test I’d run before buying any shed or kit. Measure your wheelbarrow at its widest point. Ames lists its 6-cubic-foot poly wheelbarrow at 29½ inches wide overall. A 30-inch door is a squeeze at that size, and you’ll bang your knuckles on the frame every single week. I’d want a 36-inch door, or a pair of shed doors, so the barrow rolls straight in and out without a fight.
For bedding, pine shavings are what Penn State prefers in the nests, and they’re what most feed stores stack by the door anyway. Keep a bale inside, in that storage corner, so it stays dry.
The Inside Layout: Roosts and Nests First
A tall room changes the layout rules, mostly because of one number. Penn State says to never let chickens perch more than 4 feet off the floor. Higher than that, hens hurt their legs and wings getting up and jumping down. So take away every high spot that isn’t a roost. Penn State names window sills, nest box tops and electric cords. In a shed I’d add the shelf the last owner left for paint cans.
Roosts. Penn State gives a standard hen 6 inches of roost each, with the bars 1 foot apart and 18 to 24 inches off the floor. Oregon State sets them 2 feet up, 10 inches apart, with 5 to 10 inches per bird. For twelve hens at 6 inches each, that’s 72 inches. Six feet of bar, which fits across the back wall of an 8×8 with room to spare.
Nests. Oregon State says one box for about every four birds, about 12 inches each way, so twelve hens need three. Penn State wants them at least 2 feet off the ground and at least 4 feet from the roosts, with a 3 to 4 inch lip in front and 2 inches of clean, dry material inside. Hens lay where it’s dim and quiet. Put the boxes in the darkest corner, away from the window and away from the door you walk through.
Feed and water. Penn State says to give each bird at least 3 inches of feeder space and to hang the lip at the height of the birds’ backs, which keeps feed in the pan instead of on the floor. With nipple waterers, plan on 1 nipple for every 6 to 8 birds.
Light. If you want eggs through the short days, Penn State says one low light, 40 watts or less, every 40 feet at ceiling height is plenty. In most small houses, one light over the feed and water does it.
Storage. This is the walk-in’s best trick. Penn State says to plan room for a couple of metal cans for feed and clean shavings, and a place to hang your cleaning tools. It also says feed keeps up to a month if it’s stored somewhere cool and dry, out of the sun. Metal cans with tight lids keep the rats out of it too.
Give the Run a Door You Can Walk Through Too
If you can walk into the coop, make the run walk-in too. You’ll rake it, fix the waterer and chase the one hen who won’t go to bed, and every one of those jobs is easier standing up. A covered top means no ducking, and it’s half of your predator plan anyway.
Oregon State wants the run built from 1-by-2-inch mesh and buried 6 inches to a foot into the ground, to stop coyotes and foxes digging in, and dogs and rodents with them. Penn State goes deeper: at least 12 inches down, with the bottom toed outward about 6 inches. A digger hits the turned wire and can’t get under it. Over the top, Penn State says mesh wire or netting keeps hawks and owls out, and even a grid of wire or twine spaced 3 to 4 feet apart helps.
Raccoons are the predator I’d plan for first. Maryland Extension says they’re smart enough to open simple latches, and that they’ll reach through wire to grab a bird they can’t get to. So a plain hook and eye isn’t a lock to them. Put a clip or a padlock on the people door and the pop door. And shut the flock in every night. Penn State says that if your runs aren’t predator-proof, you need to lock the birds up before dark. There’s more on wire and latches in our predator-proof coop ideas.
What I’d Build for Twelve Hens
For my twelve hens and the rooster, I’d build an 8×8 walk-in with a run on the south side. Penn State says to face the coop’s front and windows south, with the run on that side too, so the sun warms and dries the coop and the soil. Thirteen birds at 3 square feet each need 39 square feet, and an 8×8 gives 56 after the storage corner. That leaves room to add a few pullets in spring without building again.
If you have no run and no plans for one, skip the small sheds. At 8 to 10 square feet a bird, a 6×8 only holds 4 to 6 hens, and you’d be paying for a walk-in to keep fewer birds than a backyard coop holds.
And if a shed’s already sitting in your yard, start there. Vents up high, hardware cloth on every opening, a pop door with a ramp, and the shelves pulled out. It’s a weekend of work, maybe two. Before the first cold snap, read through getting a coop ready for winter, because a big room full of air behaves differently than a little box once it’s below freezing.
Related read: How to Raise Chickens for Eggs — Instant PDF download. Secure checkout by Stripe
