Build it Yourself: Backyard Chicken Coops

Alexandria Coop (Courtesy of Dan Cohen)

When Dan Cohen’s wife asked him to build a chicken coop five years ago, she wanted one for convenience’s sake. She was sick of driving the five miles to her son’s house whenever she wanted fresh eggs; she had decided it was high time to get her own chickens.

It took a few days for Cohen to build the coop, but when he finished, his wife was pleased. She even told him that he should consider selling the wood structures for a bit of extra money. He laughed the idea off at first. Having crafted models for museums in the past, he didn’t want to take that route. “I did a lot of fancy stuff where I wasn’t going to lower myself and build chicken coops,” Cohen says.

After a few months, however, he finally gave in to his wife’s suggestion and put a picture of his coop on Craigslist. The next day, he had 20 emails asking about it.

“That’s when I said ‘oh my goodness, there’s something here,’” he says.

His business quickly escalated; Cohen built 100 chicken coops his first year which ballooned into 1,500 four and a half years later. He acquired 20 chickens of his own and hired 27 employees to keep up with the rush of orders from people who had decided that they wanted to raise chickens in their backyards.

His coops were featured on The Martha Stuart Show in 2010. Then, Williams Sonoma, the high end retailer of home furnishings and cookware, decided to get in on the action.

Cohen is now featured on their site with his chicken coops, a sure sign that backyard chicken farming has officially become trendy. At a glance, Cohen’s coops look like miniature farm houses, featuring shingled roofs and wired windows. A few of them even have wheels to help move them around the yard. For a fee, Cohen’s team will place and assemble the wood and wire construction for you.

It’s not just Cohen who’s in on the chicken-raising trend. Just Food, an organization that works on connecting city dwellers with farmers, has also seen a rising interest in their chicken workshops. New York urbanites have flocked to their programs to learn about chicken care, how to build coops and what breeds of chickens are best to raise in certain climates.

At least 10 percent of attendees to Just Food chicken workshops are new to chicken keeping and attendance keeps growing, according to Greg Anderson, Just Food’s City Farms Program Manager.

The locavore movement and the demand for organic products are primarily responsible for driving the trend.

“I think it’s just great for people to be able to do this,” Cohen says. “It’s great to get away from the computer and the television and get out into the backyard and have a bit of control over your food.”