Last fall we built a chicken run attached to our chicken coop.  Unfortunately, we didn’t have enough time before the snow got too deep to add our door.  Ryan ended up crawling through our chicken door to get into the run to shovel during the winter months.

 

Keep in mind that door is 12″x12″.  It’s a good thing he fit, because there was no way my pregnant butt would have!

Now that the weather is nice, we were finally able to add a door.  When we put in our posts, we put two close together to frame in our door.  All we had to do was cut our the fencing that was there and build a door to put in its spot.

 

After removing the fencing, we added 3 pieces of treated 1×4 to the top, bottom, and middle with fencing staples.  We placed the middle 1×4 in the spot we wanted our gate lock to be.  When measuring for the horizontal pieces, we made it about half an inch smaller than the opening so that the door would swing easily.

 

These horizontal 1x4s are on the on the inside portion of the door.  We then added the vertical 1x4s.  They were added to sandwich the corners of fencing and are on the front portion of the door.

 

In order to beef up the door and keep animals from being able to tear at the edge of the fencing, we added 3 smaller pieces to the front of the door.  These pieces sandwich the fencing and make the door look a bit nicer.

 

After the door was built, we just attached it to the 4×4 posts with 2 large hinges.

 

Finally, we added a gate lock and were all finished!

 

I think Ryan will be grateful he doesn’t have to squeeze out that tiny door into the run anymore.  It will also be a lot easier to deliver treats to the chickens, so I think they will be happy about it too! Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more chicken updates to come soon!