Healthy, happy chickens are always the most productive, and an important part of making them feel safe and secure so they can lay lots of eggs is providing them with a perch to roost on each night.
Building a roost is a simple DIY job that almost anybody can manage – so we scoured the internet for plans for how to build a chicken roost to compile this list of ideas you might like to try at home
1. Chicken Roost Designs – Two Simple DIY Ladder Perch Ideas
If you’re new to chicken keeping and are wondering about the importance of roosts, this post has all the details you’ll need to help you understand. It then goes on to explain how to design a roost for your birds and gives you two super-easy, inexpensive plans to copy. Both are suitable for beginners, so they’re plans anybody will be able to recreate at home without any trouble.
2. Building a Chicken Roost – Happy Wife Acres
Building a DIY chicken roost is a simple, inexpensive project, and the freestanding version you’ll learn to build in this video tutorial shouldn’t cost you more than about $20. The roost in the video is big enough for up to 75 birds, but since most people won’t need anywhere near that capacity, it’s easy to scale down too. These roosts are also easy to move, making them even more convenient once they’re built.
3. Everything You Need to Know About DIY Chicken Roosts – Simple Living Country Gal
Another great post for beginners, this blog entry goes into the basics of why chickens roost and what you need to provide for them when constructing their perches. It then takes you through the process of building a roost for your chickens, discussing vital details like the height and width of the rungs. There’s loads of other valuable info in there too, so give it a read if there’s anything you want to know about chicken roosts or how to build one.
4. How To Build a Chicken Roost That Won’t Harm Your Chickens – Homesteady
Before building a chicken roost, there are several things you’ll need to consider – including how many chickens will be using it, how high it needs to be and the dimensions it needs to have. This video answers questions like these and more – and then goes on to show you how to build a simple yet functional roost that even a novice DIYer will be able to copy.
5. The Complete Guide to Chicken Roosts – Chickens And More
The title of this post says it all. It’s a complete guide to chicken roosts, so it gives you all the info you need about the theory behind roosts and why chickens need them. It then goes on to give you the practical details required for building the kind of roost that will keep your hens safe and comfortable at night, increasing their wellbeing – and hopefully, their productivity too.
6. Round or Flat Roosting Bars, Which is Better? – From Scratch Farmstead
Among other things, this video deals with one of the most important debates when it comes to chicken roosts – should the bars be round or flat? If you want to know this YouTuber’s opinion on the matter, give his video a watch – and then keep watching to find out how he built the perfect roost for his flock.
7. DIY Chicken Roost Idea Using Tree Branches! – DIY Danielle®
Here’s a great way to build a roost for your chickens that won’t cost you anything because it’s made from nothing more than a few branches this blogger picked up outside. Using branches is also a more natural solution for chickens, mimicking the kind of places where their ancestors roosted in the wild. It’s a fantastic idea that’s sure to appeal to lots of chicken keepers and one we enjoyed a lot.
8. Preventing Chicken Poop Everywhere – Poop Proofing Where Chickens Roost
This is not strictly a video plan for building a roost, but it deals with a related problem that all chicken owners have to face. No matter where chickens roost, the area below quickly becomes covered in poop – so whichever roosting option you go for, this video gives you a solution to this common chicken-keeping issue.
9. How to Build a Chicken Roost Out of Tree Branches – ruralsprout.com
Like the plan in #7, this post teaches you how to make a chicken roost using only tree branches, meaning you won’t need to spend anything to build it. This version is a ladder-style model that gives your hens somewhere safe and comfortable to perch while they sleep – and it’s so easy to recreate that even someone with no previous DIY experience will be able to manage it.
10. Adding More Roosting Space to the Chicken Coop
As you progress with your chicken-keeping hobby, you may decide to add more birds to your flock. However, when that happens, you’ll have to increase the capacity of your coop – and that will mean adding extra roosting space too. In this video, you get to see how this YouTuber went about adding extra space for his chickens, which should give you a few ideas for how to tackle the problem when the time comes for you to do the same.
11. Chicken Coop Roosts: The Best Design for a Healthy Flock
If you’re interested in going a bit deeper into the theory of why chickens need roosts and the benefits it brings them, this blog will make fascinating reading. It doesn’t give you a detailed plan for making a roost, but it does give you all the details you’ll need to design your own – and since they’re so easy to build, for most people, that will be enough info to get started.
12. Cheap and Easy DIY Chicken Roost – Whitepepper Farms
With some simple DIY projects, there’s no need to overcomplicate things, and when building a chicken roost, this is undoubtedly the case. That’s why we liked this video – because it just shows you how to make an easy chicken roost with no unnecessary fuss. And if that sounds like your kind of style, give the video a watch!
13. How to Build a Chicken Roosting Bar – Riggs Creek Farmhouse
Although chicken roosts don’t need to be complicated or particularly sophisticated, the one this blog post teaches us how to make is one of the more attractive versions we’ve seen. Of course, it’s still not at all difficult to make, and the plan guides you through the process in a clear and logical manner, making it a simple job for you to recreate something similar at home.
14. Chicken Roosting Bars Ideas to Help Your Flock Roost – Country Living Experience
Building a roost for chickens is a simple job, and there’s no shortage of plans that will help you do it. However, in this video, as well as learning how to build a roost from bamboo, you’ll also find out some tricks for helping your chickens roost properly. This is so important for keeping them in good health, so give it a watch if your birds are having trouble sleeping at night.
15. How to Build a Chicken Roost – Instructables
Whenever we want to find a plan for a DIY project, the Instructables site is always one of our first stops because the tutorials there are invariably excellent. This one is no exception, and the simple steps along with the useful photos will tell you everything you need to know.
16. Building a Chicken Roost – Papa Pepper
Here’s a fun video to watch. In it, you’ll get to see how this YouTuber – along with his young helpers – built a chicken roost using hickory branches fixed between two planks of cut wood. It’s great to see how the kids get involved in the project, and the roost they make is perfect – so why not have a go at copying his idea? And perhaps your team of helpers can join in too!
17. How to Build a Chicken Roost – Making a Chicken Perch for Hen House
This no-frills plan covers why chickens need a roost, what you’ll need to build one and everything you’ll need to do to put one together. It shows you how to make a roost from nothing but a few old recycled pieces of wood, making it a cheap and easy idea to replicate at home.
18. Chicken Roosting Bars DIY – The Old Swede’s Farm
The large roost this YouTuber shows us in his video could hardly be easier to make. It consists simply of a few lengths of 2×4 connected to provide a multi-tiered roost for his hens. There’s plenty of space for everyone, and the design is easy to scale up or down according to your needs, so check it out and see if this is the solution you’re looking for.
19. Chicken Roosts: Sleep, Perches & Dimensions – Chicken Fans
As this post explains at the beginning, it’s chickens’ instinct to roost on the branches of trees, so mimicking that should guide you when you design a roost for their coop. We like the useful graphics in the post that help explain the basics of roosting, and although it doesn’t provide a step-by-step plan for building a roost, there’s enough info in the post for most people to work out how to do it by themselves.
20. A Pallet Roost for Your Chicken House – TexasPrepper2
There are so many great plans online for building just about anything you can imagine using nothing more than salvaged wood from pallets – and this video shows you how to use pallet wood to build a chicken roost. It’s simple, will cost little or nothing and does everything you need it to – so why make things more difficult than that?
21. Chicken Roost Guidelines – Pets on Mom.com
Building a chicken roost is so simple that most people won’t need a detailed plan. However, there are several things you need to take into consideration before you start – like height, materials and spacing – and this short post has all the details you need. Then, having worked out exactly what you want to build, you’ll be able to design a roost for your birds that most perfectly matches your requirements.
22. Adding Roost Bars to DIY Chicken Coop – Bock Bock Bouquet
Here’s a video tutorial that perfectly demonstrates how easy it can be to provide roosting space for your hens. All this YouTuber did was install 2×2 bracing along the side of his chicken coop and then place other 2x2s across them to give the chickens somewhere to perch. You just need to ensure the perches are higher than the nesting boxes, and your chickens will have somewhere safe and secure to spend their nights.
23. Chicken Roosts – DIY Roost Ideas, Bars, Boxes, Pecking Order
What we love about this post is the way it explains everything you need to know about roosting in a simple way that just about anybody will be able to understand. Providing chickens with somewhere to perch for the night is essential if you want them to stay happy and healthy, and this post goes on to give you suggestions for ways to make sure your birds have somewhere comfortable to sleep.
24. The Comprehensive Roost Video – What You Need to Know About Chicken Perches
To finish, here’s a comprehensive video guide to everything you need to know about roosting – including how to build a roost for your hens. It talks about important info like perch height, placement and size – and it also includes some useful tips about things to avoid when you begin constructing a chicken roost of your own.
Loads of great ideas to help you get inspired
Building a chicken roost is not a difficult job, but as you can see from this list, there are many ways to do it – so choosing the best style for the size of your coop and flock is key.
We’ve enjoyed finding these plans for you, so we hope you’ve enjoyed watching and reading them too – and above all, we hope we’ve helped you find the plan you needed to get started building a chicken roost of your own.
