The Best DIY Chicken Coops on Instagram

Are you ready to be inspired by some of the best DIY chicken coops on Instagram? Are you thinking about getting chickens for the first time or adding to your flock and need a little more coop space? If so, I have a solution for you, a DIY chicken coop just in time for spring chicks.

Today I’m sharing a few of my chicken friends and their DIY chicken coops. I love seeing their coops on Instagram and reached out to each of them to learn a little bit more about their coops and their flocks.

Amber of Dolled Up and Muddy

Meet Amber and her Chickens

Amber is the owner of Freckled Feather Homestead.  I love her gorgeous flock of chickens, ducks and geese. She is a wife, mom of three and chicken lady. Amber and her family live in Maryland on 4 acres that they began homesteading in 2018.

Amber describes herself as a self-taught chicken mom. She has a lot of chicken knowledge and has learned to naturally treat and vet her own flock. Last time I chatted with Amber, she had 20 chickens. However, between chick days at her local feed store, incubating eggs, and broody hens, that number is always a moving target.

Amber says “we have a very diverse flock. No chicken is the same. Some may be the same “type” but have a different colors. For example: we have a black copper Maran, cuckoo Maran, golden cuckoo Maran, noir Maran, and a blue copper Maran”. Amber also bred her rooster (blue egg genes) with her brown speckled egger hens. She is hoping the cross will result in olive egger pullets. 

The Chicken Coops at Dolled Up & Muddy

Amber’s homestead includes two coops. Both were complete DIYs! 

Her first coop, a beautiful white coop, was built to house 6 larger breeds or 10 bantams. It’s 4ft wide by 16ft long. It’s 3+ years old and was designed to allow Amber and her family to collect eggs from the outside. It is absolutely gorgeous and receives lots of attention on the gram.

Then came the 2nd coop known as the black door coop, also gorgeous. Amber says “I did not expect to love having chickens as much as we did, so we built the second coop to accommodate both poultry and waterfowl”. The 2nd coop is 10×10 and the run is 10ft wide x 40ft long. With a 10 square foot minimum for each bird, it can house up to 40 birds. In the 2nd coop, Amber and her family gather eggs from the inside of the coop. 

The white coop now serves as “nursery” for baby chicks & younger birds until they are ready for the larger coop.  It features two cupolas, a natural tree perch, and is completely predator proof. Amber says, “not even mice can get in.” 

The black door coop accommodates waterfowl and poultry and was made from up-cycled door and windows. Wood milled from Amber’s parents woods was also use for the black door DIY chicken coop. 

Stay in Touch with Dolled Up & Muddy

To see more photos of Amber’s homestead plus a regular dose of red lipstick and boots, follow Amber on Instagram @dolledupandmuddy and on her blog.

Emily of 3 Acre Homestead

Meet Emily and her Chickens

I found Emily on the gram when she was sharing photos of her beautiful vintage inspired home. I soon discovered that she had chickens and the most adorable coop. Emily and her husband Aaron love to DIY together and share lots of great ideas.

She is a mom to 4 children and describes herself as “lucky enough to be a stay at home mom for most of their childhood.” Emily and her family live in Indiana, where for the last 5 years they have been renovating their fixer upper.

It wasn’t long before the new homesteaders added a dozen baby chicks to their brood which also includes three shih tzus and a chocolate lab mix. The star of their homestead is Jimmy Dean, their cat.

At last count, Emily’s flock included 15 hens, one rooster and six pullets. Emily and Aaron have a variety of breeds at 3 Acres Homestead including Sapphire Olive Eggers, Ameraucanas, and Emily’s favorite Elvira, a Golden Laced Polish hen. Emily says, “we’ve never hatched our own eggs but have ordered plenty online and had them shipped to our house.”

The Chicken Coop at 3 Acre Homestead

After collecting ideas for a chicken coop, Emily and her husband began building their coop in the spring of 2017. It is completely custom and one of a kind. They have had up to 22 chickens and 4 ducks in the coop at one time. The main coop is roughly 8ft by 10ft (80 sq. ft) and the smaller coop is 3ft by 6ft (18sq. ft.). Both coops have easy access to the 20′ x 20′ enclosed chicken run. 

I asked Emily to tell me about her favorite coop features. She says, “practically speaking the enclosed chicken run is the best feature of our coop because it allows our chickens to go in and out of the coop freely while being protected from predators. My most loved feature is our Dutch door my husband built from scratch.” 

Stay in Touch with 3 Acre Homestead

Keep in touch with Emily by following her on Instagram @3acrehomestead where she shares her vintage inspired fixer upper, DIYs and chickens! Emily also has an Etsy shop.

Meeghan of Caligirl in a Southern World

Meet Meeghan and her Chickens

Meeghan and I are fellow duck moms and love sharing our spring ducklings. Meeghan is also a chicken lady and lives with her husband and two children on 5+ acre hobby farm called Hidden Acres. Their hobby farm is located in Wilmington, North Carolina and is home to 25+ farm animals.

Meeghan says “six years ago I traded in my suit, pumps, and briefcase in suburban southern California for jeans and a t-shirt, rubber boots, and a feed bucket in the coastal country of North Carolina.” Before moving to North Carolina, Meeghan only had cats and dogs. Four months after arriving in North Carolina she brought 8 pullets to the farm. They quickly lead to another dog (making two – Frank and Lucy)), four goats (Daisy, Maggie, Rosie, and Holly), two horses (Apollo and Prince), a micro mini pig (Willy-who is neither micro nor mini), two barn cats (Millie and Jolene), five Pekin ducks (Chandler, Monica, Joey and 2 to be named once we know their gender), and anywhere from 12-18 chickens.

I love following Meeghan on Instagram where she shares a daily dose of farm animals in her stories. She would love to have a mini donkey and alpaca one day too, but says “that’s going to take some convincing my husband.”

Meeghan’s chickens vary in age and she tends to acquire them randomly. Her breeds include: Ameraucanas, Wyandottes, Plymouth Rocks, Leghorns, Rhode Island Reds, Silkies, and Orpingtons. Meeghan has never hatched chicks, but she has hatched ducklings.

The Chicken Coop at Caligirl in a Southern World

The Fluffy Butt Hut, the name of Meeghan’s chicken coop, is a beautiful DIY. It’s hard to believe that it started from a $40 shed kit her husband, Scott, found on the Home Depot website. They built it without plans, just a drawing on a sticky note. The interior structure of the shed is 6’ X 8’ (54 sq. ft.) and the outside run is 8’ X 8’ (64 sq. ft.).

Their chickens free-range all day everyday and egg collection happens both inside and outside the coop. There is a box that can be accessed from the outside of the coop with 4 nesting boxes in it and they have 2 nesting boxes inside the coop.

Meeghan says “I think the best feature about our coop is the Dutch door. We took a vintage barn window and used that for the upper part of the Dutch door. We removed the glass from the window frame and replaced it with chicken wire so that the hens stay safe and get more air ventilation in the coop. I also found an inexpensive replica of an antique glass door knob to use for the Dutch door, which I love.” 

For more photos and information about the Meeghan’s coop, check out her blog post the Fluffy Butt Hut.

Stay in Touch with Caligirl in a Southern World

You can find Meeghan on Instagram @caligirlinasouthernworld and on her blog where she shares weekly. You’ll love her recipes, DIYs, home inspiration and farm updates. Meeghan also shares lots of inspiration on Pinterest.

Penny of Happy Days Farm

Meet Penny and her Chickens

Meet Penny Ausley of Happy Days Farm. Penny and her husband live on eight acres in Alamance County, North Carolina. They started their hobby farm in 2012. Penny was one of the first farm accounts I started following on Instagram, we have twin sinks and the same name, plus we both love chickens. She also has a beautiful log cabin on her farm and is the author of several self-published books.

The last time I chatted with Penny, she had seven hens (a Delaware, Barnvelder, Welsummer, Blue Cochin, Easter Egger, Black Copper Maran, Silver-Laced Wyandotte),  two turkeys (Royal Palm), six turkey poults, two guinea fowl (Pearl) and five bunnies (one Flemish Giant, one Rex, and four Dwarf-Lionheads). 

In 2018, she self-published a children’s book, True Tales From Happy Days Farm,  about the animals on the farm. It is available on Amazon and in her Etsy shop. She also published a rabbit care book entitled, Raising Happy Rabbits. It is available at Tractor Supply and also on Amazon. 

The Chicken Coop at Happy Days Farm

Penny says, “we built our coop using plans we purchased from Heather Bullard. The coop was featured in Country Living magazine at least a year before I purchased the plans. I altered the plans by making it larger and also added a section on the front run, and a large run off the back. We have housed as many as twenty chickens at one time. We collect our eggs from the outside.”

Penny’s favorite feature of her DIY chicken coop is the slide-out dropping tray under the roosting perches. It is made so that they can just slide it out for cleaning the chickens droppings each morning. You can find a chicken coop tour on Penny’s Instagram page that shows how the tray works with lots of other information on the coop.

Penny has a blog post about her beautiful coop linked here.

Stay in Touch with Happy Days Farm

You can follow Penny on Instagram @happydaysfarm and her blog where she shares daily about her faith, farm, garden and decor. Penny also has an Etsy shop and is active on Facebook and Pinterest.

Our Chicken Coop

Our chicken coop is a custom coop by Morton, but inside the run is a cute DIY that the chickens love. It is made of scrap materials and shingles. The chickens love to hang out in it during the day, especially on hot summer days. I also love to decorate it for the holidays.

To learn more about our custom chicken coop, check out my blog post here. I share four different custom chicken coops including our chicken coop. If you have questions about our coop, feel free to drop them below in comments.

Want to learn more about our flock? Check out these posts of follow me on Instagram.

Instagram: @pennypenningtonweeks

Blog Post: How to Care for Backyard Chickens: FAQs

Blog Post: Introducing Ducklings to Water: The First Farmhouse Sink Photo