One of the most important features of any chicken coop is the door, and whether you want a simple one that just lets your chickens in and out or prefer something more advanced like an automated version, building one is an easy DIY project that most people can manage.
For anyone who might be interested in trying, we’ve scoured the internet to see what other people have been doing – and as a result, here are 23 DIY chicken coop door ideas you might like to have a go at building yourself.
1. Chicken Coop Doors and Pop Holes – Cluckin
To get things started, here’s a post with all the info you need about chicken coop doors, what they should be like and how to build them. Although it doesn’t give you a detailed plan for building a chicken coop door, it helps you understand the various aspects to consider when making one – and then you can either design one of your own or choose another plan that most closely matches your requirements.
2. Cheap and Easy DIY Sliding Chicken Door!
As this YouTuber explains, his objective here was to build a temporary chicken coop door for the lowest possible cost that would do the job until he installs an automatic chicken door he plans to buy later. For this reason, he built it making cheap materials such as plywood – and for a temporary or even a more permanent coop door solution, we think his design is excellent. Check it out and see if you agree!
3. How to Build Sliding Door for Your Chicken Coop – Oak Hill Homestead
Here’s a simple idea for a chicken coop door that anybody should be able to copy. It’s a sliding door design that opens with a piece of clothesline rope, which makes it easy to give chickens access to their run when it’s time for them to come out. It’s also convenient to open and close without disturbing the chickens, and as this blogger writes, she’s very pleased with the results!
4. DIY Automatic Chicken Coop Door – April Wilkerson
If you’re looking for a chicken coop door that will save you some of the time and effort of looking after your birds, this is an idea you’ll love. It’s an automatic door that opens when it detects light and then closes again after dusk. That way, you won’t need to worry about letting your chickens out in the morning or putting them away in the evening – because the automatic door takes care of it for you!
5. Simple Automatic Chicken Coop Door: 11 Steps – Instructables
For anyone looking for a fun DIY project to tackle, this plan for a solar-powered automatic timed chicken coop door could be just the thing. It might seem a little complicated at first, but the instructions are clear – and the photos and diagrams help too. And as the plan’s author writes, his version of the door has been going strong for four years, so if you can get it to work, it will have been well worth the effort.
6. Automatic Chicken Coop Door DIY – Hagon’s Homestead
In this video, this YouTuber shows us how he made an automatic door for his chicken coop. At nearly thirty minutes, it’s quite a long tutorial – but he goes into lots of detail, showing us exactly what he did at every step. This makes his plan easy to follow, even for those with only modest DIY skills, so it’s the kind of thing that just about anybody will be able to replicate at home.
7. Pop Door for Coop – BackYard Chickens
In this post, you’ll see several ideas for pop doors that people have shared, showing you the kind of thing that’s possible. There are no detailed plans or instructions, but doors like this are fairly easy to construct, so most people will feel comfortable having a go at making one without a detailed tutorial to follow.
8. How to Make a Chicken Coop Door – Becky’s Homestead
Not all DIY projects need to be complicated, as this video shows. In it, we get to see how this YouTuber added a door to her chicken coop to let her chickens free-range during the day. The video starts with her trip to the hardware store where she explains the supplies she’ll need for the project – after which, she then shows us how she did it. A great plan and one we’re sure plenty of people will be keen to copy.
9. DIY Automatic Chicken Coop Door – Will Work for Liberty
We love this advanced automatic chicken coop door that’s based on a linear actuator. As this YouTuber explains, he lost a whole flock of chickens to a local cat, and now he needs a solution for protecting his new flock from meeting the same fate. This door is part of his plan, and we think this design is one of our favorites. Give his video a watch and see what you think!
10. How To Make a Chicken Coop Door – The Happy Chicken Coop
In this post about chicken coop doors, you’ll learn about everything from deciding which type of door to build to keeping your chickens safe from grizzly bears. The post introduces all the different types of chicken coop door and then provides a step-by-step plan for building one. This is a great resource for everything related to chicken coop doors and essential reading for anyone thinking about adding a new door to their coop.
11. Automatic Chicken Coop Door (DIY Easy Build!) – PunkyRoo
When building an automatic chicken coop door, the main difficulty is working out how to wire it. That’s why this video is so useful – because in it, this YouTuber explains all the details of how she made hers. As she explains, the store-bought door she tried first was a failure, so she decided to make one of her own – an idea that was far more successful. Want to know how she did it? Then give her video a watch to find out!
12. How To Build a Sliding Chicken Door – Parsley Farm
This YouTuber wanted to add a side door to his chicken coop, and this video shows us how he tackled the project. The sliding door design is super-simple and just the kind of thing we’re sure lots of other chicken keepers will also want to try – so give the tutorial a watch and see if it’s an idea you might want to copy!
13. DIY Dutch Door for Chicken Coop – The Inspired Workshop
Here’s an original idea for a chicken coop entry – it’s a Dutch door design that opens at the bottom to let the chickens in and out but that also opens at the top to give their human keepers easy access too. If it’s a design you like, you’ll also find full details of how to make one, allowing you to add something just like it to your chicken coop too.
14. How To Install a Sliding Door on Your Chicken Coop – The Wannabe Homesteader
Since adding a sliding door for a chicken coop is not a particularly difficult project, most people won’t need a detailed tutorial for building one. Instead, a simple time-lapse video like this one that shows how this YouTuber built his should be enough. It looks like it does the job perfectly too, so there’s no reason to make things more complicated than they need to be.
15. Simple DIY Chicken Powered Coop Door – Ken Lavigne
If you want to know how to build a chicken-powered automatic coop door that requires no batteries, solar panels, timers or wiring, this is the video for you. In it, we see how this chicken keeper came up with an ingenious design to allow his chickens to come and go as they please. Want to know how he did it? Then give his video a watch to see!
16. DIY Chicken Coop Door – Automatic, Simple, Cheap
As this blogger writes, the daily chores of letting chickens out in the morning and putting them back in the evening should be something that’s easy to automate – and in the rest of the post, he explains how he went about doing it. Of course, you can spend lots of money buying a ready-made one, but if you’re not scared of a bit of creative DIY, it’s easy enough to make you own instead – and this blog has all the details of how to do it.
17. Best DIY Automatic Chicken Coop Door – Martin Jonson Off Grid Living
At the beginning of this video, this YouTuber demonstrates the old manual door his chicken coop has – and he explains why it’s a less-than-perfect solution. That’s why he decided to upgrade to a far superior automatic version – and the rest of the video explains how he went about doing it.
18. Easy Automatic Chicken Coop Door – TheVikingReaper
With automatic chicken coop doors being inexpensive and relatively simple to install, there’s no reason for chicken keepers to have to let chickens out manually each morning and then put them back in the coop each evening. All you need is a good plan to follow, and that’s what this video gives you. It’s mostly a timelapse of this YouTuber building his version of an automatic door, but he also gives you a bit of explanation too, making it an easy idea to copy.
19. Automatic Chicken Coop Door: 10 Steps – Instructables
There are so many advantages to automating a chicken coop door, and this plan from the Instructables website gives you a simple plan for installing an automatic door based on Arduino that opens and closes depending on the light from the sun. The steps involved are clearly explained, and there are also plenty of photos and videos to show you what you need to do, meaning most people will be able to install something like this in their chicken coop at home.
20. Chicken Tractor Sliding Door Design Idea – DIY Mobile Coop
If you keep your chickens in a chicken tractor rather than in a fixed coop, here’s a plan that will teach you how to add a sliding door. Having a simple door like this will make putting the chickens into the tractor and taking them so much easier, and as you can see from the plan, it’s the kind of design that most people will be able to replicate without too much trouble.
21. Chicken Coop Part 2 (Roof, Windows, & Doors) – Tab and Taylor
This video is part of a series these YouTubers filmed about how they built a chicken coop for their 12 hens – and this episode deals with how they built the roof, windows and doors. The coop itself is highly impressive, and these guys are accomplished DIYers, so it’s the kind of video almost everyone will be able to learn something from.
22. DIY Automatic Chicken Coop Door Failure – Homesteading Uncontained
Not all DIY plans are successes – and this video documents a DIY automatic door that failed. However, failed DIY projects are fine too as long as we learn from them and correct what went wrong – which is why seeing what these YouTubers did and how they fixed it is so valuable.
23. You Can Make This Simple Chicken Coop Door – Mallard 5 Farmhouse
To finish, here’s a useful video this YouTuber uploaded showing how he added a simple sliding door to his chicken coop. Some people might prefer a more advanced automated door while others are content with a basic old-fashioned design – and if you are one of the latter, this is a plan you should appreciate.
No shortage of great ideas to inspire you
As we’ve seen, when it comes to chicken doors, there’s no shortage of great ideas online for you to copy, whatever your skill level in DIY.
We’ve enjoyed collecting these plans for you, so we hope you’ve enjoyed reading and watching them all too – and above all, we hope we’ve helped you find the ideas and inspiration you needed to build a chicken coop door of your own.
