How to Make Chicken Pens

Aside from the obvious advantage of providing a continuous supply of organic eggs in return for a small outlay of chicken feed and table scraps, caring for chickens involves little time and effort. However, if you keep chickens, you do need to insure that they have a clean area in which to move around. In addition, you must keep the chickens safe from predators. You can build a sturdy, portable chicken pen to help you successfully raise and care for your chickens.

Things You'll Need

  • Two long wooden boards
  • Two short wooden boards
  • Chicken wire
  • Metal ties
  • PVC pipe
  • Hammer
  • Nails
  • Measuring tape
  • Super glue, liquid nails or epoxy glue
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Instructions

    • 1

      Measure the area for your chicken pen. Mark off the planned square footage and lay down two long and two short boards to make a rectangle. Consider the number of chickens that will live in the pen. If the pen will hold only a few chickens, the enclosure will not need as much space as if the pen will contain a lot of chickens. Consider a six-foot-long by two-foot-wide measurement as a sample size of a chicken pen for six to eight chickens. You can purchase pre-cut wooden boards in the sizes you need at a lumber yard.

    • 2

      Use a hammer and nails to fasten the boards together in a rectangle. Lay the rectangle on the ground.

    • 3

      Use a measuring tape to measure three pieces of flexible PVC pipe. Arc them over the rectangle, allowing for a maximum height of approximately two feet. Attach the PVC to the wooden boards at the base by gluing them on with liquid nails, epoxy glue or super glue. You can find PVC pipe, liquid nails, epoxy glue and super glue at a home center.

    • 4

      Lay chicken wire over the PVC pipes, covering length of the pen. Attach the chicken wire to the boards with metal ties (available at a hardware store or a home center). Cover the front and back of the pen with chicken wire, attaching the wire to the surrounding PVC pipe and the bottom boards with metal ties.

    • 5

      Lay chicken wire along the bottom of the cage. Secure the wire to the bottom of the cage with metal ties. This allows you to transport the chickens easily from their daily outings into the coop at night, and also protects the chickens from predators that may try to burrow into the pen.

    • 6

      Transport the pen to different areas of the yard every day, so that the chickens can peck and nibble in various parts of the yard. This allows each area some time to replenish its vegetation and bug supply while the chicken pen sits in another spot.