One of the very best things about owning chickens is how cheap they are. One quick trip to the tractor supply company and a swipe of a little debit card, and pretty soon you can be coming home with 12, 20, or who knows how many chickens with money left over for dinner. It’s wonderful!
But, though the chickens themselves are quite cheap, lots of other things involving their care can get expensive. Probably the single biggest expense for beginning Chicken keepers is their coop.
Chicken coop kits or pre-built coops can run you several hundred dollars, even well over a couple of grand, depending on the size, complexity, and quality. That can turn into some major sticker shock when all you wanted was a little flock of yardbirds to call your own.
But you don’t have to give in to that. Kick in that homesteader spirit and a little bit of DIY ingenuity and you can whip together an entirely suitable and affordable chicken coop for very little money, often under $100.
I’ve got 20 such frugal coop ideas for you gathered from around the web and on YouTube…
Rabbit Hut Chicken Coop
The first coop on our list was done by one of our most experienced writers, Tara Dodrill, a few years back. As you might expect, this one makes use of an existing rabbit hutch – meaning the costs are literally next to nothing.
Learn to make it here.
Chicken Coop for Less than $50
The second coop on our list is a small and simple one, but undeniably effective if you’ve got just a handful of adult chickens.
It has a small ramp beneath and a modest run attached, just enough for your birds to get some fresh air, and uses mostly scrap and reclaimed wood throughout along with a mishmash of hardware.
But, if finished, it wouldn’t look too bad at all and could probably be assembled in a weekend easily if you are handy.
As long as you aren’t too caught up with the idea of fine finishings and an Instagram-worthy appearance, it is indeed possible to have a functional coop for very little money.
Emergency Portable Chicken Coop
Sometimes a chicken coop must be a thing of pure necessity. Maybe your original coop is damaged or even destroyed. Maybe you have suddenly come into possession of more chickens than you thought and need a place to house them securely.
Whatever the situation, you’ll need to be like this intrepid homesteader and hammer together something functional from literally whatever is at hand. It isn’t pretty, but it definitely works, and if you can use scrap and repurposed items like he did, it won’t cost you a penny.
Portable PVC Poultry Pen
PVC piping and connectors are a rarely seen but viable option for framing out a functional coop. This one’s even designed to be mobile like a chicken tractor, and considering how lightweight the material is this one is truly easy to move around.
Building something like this takes a different approach, but it might be perfect for you, especially if you already have lots of plumbing supplies on hand. In any case, the plans linked here are thorough and complete with a full build list…
Playhouse Converted to Chicken Coop
One of the best ways to save a fortune on a chicken coop is to repurpose an existing structure, even something that was never designed to hold chickens! Case in point is a cheap, plastic kids’ playhouse.
With a few choice additions like a nesting box that can be opened from the outside, and a little bit of light framing to make the covered run and base, very little additional work was required to make it suitable for a modest flock.
A playhouse that size can easily hold about 10 adult birds. Get the plan here.
The $50 1-Hour Coop
Cost is one thing, but time is another. I see plenty of Chicken keepers boast about making a cheap coop, but they get so caught up in scavenging for materials or trying to make what they have on hand work that they lose the plot, and what should be a simple project ends up taking many days or weeks.
There is an associated cost of your time, don’t forget, time that is often better spent doing something else!
Not the case with this gentleman though, who makes a hoop on frame style coop from spare lumber, welded wire fencing, chicken wire, and tarps.
Water Tank and Pallets Turned Into Coop
One of the very coolest designs I’ve seen in some time, this coop is made from leftover plywood, lumber, pallets, and an old water tank stood up on its side. It looks really neat, and it’s certainly rugged and durable.
The only tricky part will be sizing out the framing and cladding to fit inside the circumference of the water tank. That’s not quite as easy as building in squares or rectangles like pretty much every other design on our list.
But if you’ve got an old water tank that’s just been taking up space, repurposing it will let you kill two birds with one stone. Sorry, poor choice of words considering we’re talking about chickens!
Learn to make it here.
Another Reclaimed Wood and Pallet Coop for $50
Here is yet another reclaimed wood example on our list, one that is constructed almost entirely from pallets either left intact or cannibalized for planks.
The end result looks rustic, very rustic. So rustic in fact that it looks like it might have been transported right out of some long-lost old west ghost town.
Nonetheless, it is sturdy, and the builder shows off some sound carpentry skills. You can do the same, and if you don’t mind spending a little bit of extra time to break down some of the pallets for the wood you’ll need, this is a great example of what can be done.
World’s Cheapest Chicken Coop
The world’s cheapest chicken coop? That is a heck of a boast, but this hardcore off-grid homesteader proves that it is indeed.
More of a cobbled-together enclosure than an actual structure, it is a little more than some pallets braced by rebar and roofed with, no kidding, milk jug shingles laboriously cut out by hand.
I’ll level with you; I wouldn’t trust this thing to not fall down under any amount of bad weather, but it seems he has made it work. It just goes to show that you don’t have to be an expert carpenter to make your own thrifty chicken coop.
Pallet Chicken Coop
Another DIY coop, another stack of pallets consumed. Jokes aside, this model is rustic, functional, and far easier to access compared to some of the others we’ve looked at so far.
It has a sizable door, a nice sloping roof to keep the rain off, and is sturdy enough to withstand most predators.
Obviously, some sacrifices have been made when it comes to appearance, but a coat of primer and paint will go a long way. If you haven’t figured it out by now, there is a lot to be said for reclaiming quality lumber from unused pallets. Start collecting now if you haven’t already.
Cheap Coop from Amazon Shed
The gentleman in this video put together a spacious coop for a large flock using an Amazon shed as the basis. Now, you might balk at the price of more than $300. You can certainly get a good Coop kit or pre-assembled coop for that much money, but you can’t get one this big.
More importantly, I want you to consider this as an example of what you can do if you have an existing, unused shed and some other materials that you might repurpose for the cause.
$40 PVC Hoop Coop
This hoop coop it’s one of my favorites on this list and I think it does a lot right: it’s made out of cheap, widely available and sturdy PVC piping and it is a low-profile “quonset hut” design that doesn’t take up much room and is easy to reposition.
Chicken wire is likewise something that is very, very cheap to obtain assuming you don’t have some already. I’ve got some concerns about using tarps as covering, particularly in high-wind events, but sacrifices are always going to be made when you are pinching pennies.
$20 Chicken Coop
Oh boy. If ever there was a junkyard- or Mad Max-themed chicken coop, it has to be this one.
Admittedly cobbled together by amateurs, it is made from literally anything that they had lying around, an old door, unused plexiglass sheets, pallets, lumber, bits of plastic, PVC pipe, and who knows what else.
You can’t complain about the cost, though, even though the owners are well aware that the thing is certainly going to fall down in a couple of years.
That doesn’t inspire confidence, but as a temporary measure, until they can build or buy something better, there’s nothing wrong with that at all!
The Big $100 Coop and Run
If you’ve noticed one thing about the frugal coops we’ve covered so far, it is probably that they tend to be quite small.
If you want just a handful of chooks, that’s fine, but what are you to do if you want a large flock to call your own? Just give up, or shell out premium coin to buy a large coop kit? Nah, you don’t have to do that.
With a different approach, it’s possible to build a very large coop for right at or under $100. You’ll note that the design is fairly primitive, and it could stand a little more reinforcement, but it’s definitely serviceable and weather-resistant.
Thrifty Chicken Coop
A cute and clever creation, I love this retro-modern design because it shows beautifully what skilled craftsmanship can do with discarded materials and offcuts.
From a neat design in the door to a contrasting coat of paint, it is compact, sturdy, and built to last. If you have the skill, or are just willing to put in more time, you can make salvage, free, and hand-me-down materials shine.
The full-size walk-in door is a great touch because it’ll make it so much easier to muck out the run and work on the structure if needed, and elevating the coop helps keep birds safer from some predators, and also from groundwater in case of heavy rains or flooding.
This really is an A+ design and they get another A+ for effort. This is the standard for thrifty coops, folks!
Old Dresser Coop
If you change the way you think about a chicken coop, a world of possibilities will open up to you. For instance, if you have just one or two chickens, you might not need to build a coop at all. Why not modify something like a dresser, like this lady did?
It makes a lot of sense, especially when you see how the nesting boxes, really the drawers, now slide out for easy egg retrieval and cleaning. This is how you repurpose, ladies and gentlemen!
$25 Chicken Tractor
Sometimes a small chicken tractor is all you need. If you don’t need or want a large coop, or you just prefer to keep your chickens on the move to give your grass and land a break, this design is perfect.
It might not sound possible, but the video shows step by step how this family puts the whole thing together in the afternoon using wood they already had on hand.
It’s a simple, minimalist design, but as you’ll see after the reveal it is entirely functional. There’s not one thing wrong with it. The simplest solution is usually the best after all when you’re homesteading.
$20 Refurbed Coop
Here’s another rough and ready coop! Salvage lumber, repurposed cabinets, mismatched colors, and paint, it’s all here! It sure doesn’t look like much, not at first, but the end result is surprisingly nice, and they even took the time to put a decorative panel on the side. It’s got sort of a Bohemian charm that is hard to describe!
If you’re paying attention, you might also have been surprised to see how big it is for such little money. Again, start expanding your thoughts about what is possible with different repurposed materials, and you can keep that budget under control.
Recycled Lumber Coop
If you’ve got scrap, leftover, or reclaimed wood around and lots of it, you can bring it all together and make a genuinely impressive and extremely attractive chicken coop like this family did.
Remember what I said up above about a coat of paint covering a lot of flaws and design “sins” for lack of a better word? You’ll see what I mean now.
An attractive avocado green and berry red ramp is charming and calming in equal measure. Again, if you haven’t started your own reclaimed woodpile this should be motivation enough.
Playground Equipment to Chicken Coop
If there’s one thing you can count on your kids to do it is outgrowing the toys and playground stuff you get for them. Instead of letting it sit around and rot in the weather, start modifying it and turn it into a gorgeous and highly functional chicken coop. This one is basically a tower!
You know it has to make the chickens feel good having a nice, tall roosting spot.
Cheap Shed Chicken Coop
At its absolute simplest, all you need to do is clean it out, put in some roosting bars, and maybe cut a little port in it for a chicken door and you are all set.
Assuming you’ve already got the shed, a few cheap extras, and your coop will be ready in just a couple of hours.
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Tom has lived and worked on farms and homesteads from the Carolinas to Kentucky and beyond. He is passionate about helping people prepare for tough times by embracing lifestyles of self-sufficiency.