How To Build Roosting Bars In A Chicken Coop

Chickens love to roost for comfort and safety — it’s perfectly fitting that about half the chickens born will be “roosters.” They do so in nature, and learning to build roosting bars is worth it! It can be as simple or complex as you want to make it and can be a fun and fulfilling project to take on.

How can I build my own roosting bars for my chicken coop? The best way we’ve found to build roosting bars inside a coop is to mount two triangular supports to the inner coop walls and tie small horizontal beams or dowels across. I give at least 8″ of length per chicken with a few extra “spots” for perching. Ensure the bars are positioned away from drafts.

That’s a simple yet ill-defined answer, so in this article, we’ll discuss the specifics of how we built roosting bars in our workshop-turned-chicken coop.

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Why Do Chickens Need Roosting Bars?

While chickens may not “need” roosting bars for survival, having them plays an important part in their overall health.

We can begin by examining why chickens (hens and roosters alike) have the natural instinct to perch above ground. It’s primarily for safety from predators, mainly as they sleep at night. Chickens can roost much higher than they can jump/fly as they’ve developed this survival mechanism.

Of course, the coop should be safe from predators, but that doesn’t mean roosting bars are unnecessary inside the coop. Keeping on the topic of health and safety, having perches above the coop floor will help keep the chickens from sleeping in their dropping at night and away from harmful bacteria. Higher roosting bars also separate the chickens from any lice, mites and other biting insects that may be in the floor bedding.

Having roosting bars at varying heights can also help establish and maintain the social “pecking” order of the flock, with the chickens higher in the order generally opting for the higher (safer) perches.

How High Should Roosting Bars Be?

Roosting bars should ideally start a foot or more off the coop floor, and while they can be built up to the ceiling (allowing space for the chickens themselves), it’s important to keep them away from drafts. In our case, that meant keeping them below the vents we installed.

When opting for higher perches, stagger several bars at varying heights (like stairs) to make maneuvering easier for your flock (and to keep the higher chickens from pooping on the lower ones).

Other Information On Roosting Bars

Before we get into the build, I want to review a few other information regarding roosting bars.

The first is that chickens are relatively flat-footed, meaning they don’t wrap their feet around their footings like raptors and many wild birds. Their toes will curl around their perch if necessary, but their feet aren’t designed to have their toes touch. Therefore, it’s important to make their roosting bars thick enough. It’s recommended that the perches be at least 2″ wide to allow the chickens to sit comfortably. At the same time, we don’t want them too wide either (I wouldn’t go more than 5″) since we want them to stay clean from droppings.

As for material, wood is easy to work with and provides a good grip for the chickens. Just ensure no splinters are sticking out to avoid injury. Metal is best avoided as it’s often too slippery, and in the colder months, it gets colder than wood. Plastic could be used, though, like metal, it’s often too slippery. Wood planks or even 2×4 lumber works well. Tree branches could be used as well, so long as they offer the support necessary for the chickens.

Finally, I want to touch on the location of the roosting bars within the coop. It’s important to make the coop as draft-free as possible, but if there are drafts or open vents, it’s important to position the roosting bars away from them if possible.

Additionally, because your chickens will be pooping from the perch (both when asleep and awake), it’s important not to have the roosting bars positioned above the nesting boxes or above food and water. It’s also important to place them above an easily accessible part of the coop for easier cleaning.

With that preliminary information out of the way, let’s get into actually building the chicken roosting bar (the way I made mine).

What Supplies You’ll Need

As with most things DIY, there are plenty of different ways to build roosting bars for your chicken coop. For instance, you could simply find some small fallen tree branches and tie them together using tree bark or young, stringy tree stems.

I built mine a specific way, using a few tools, some new lumber, and some scrap lumber I had lying around the yard. Here’s my list, more specifically:

• Mitre saw (with hold-down stick)
• Power drill
• Wood screws (I used #8 1 1/4″)
• 3 – 2×2 x 8′
• 3 – 1×3 x 8′ (1×4 will work if you want a wider perch)

It’s a pretty simple job. I’d recommend a hold-down stick for the triangle cuts on the mitre saw.

How To Build Roosting Bars

As you can see from the photo below, I built the roosting bars after I built and installed the nesting boxes. The nesting boxes are 9″ off the floor. I decided to make the first bar 24″ (2′) off the floor to offer a higher perch than the nesting boxes while allowing easy access beneath the roosting bars for cleaning.

And so, I started with my horizontal pieces of the 2×2 triangular bracing. The studs of the gardening shed we converted were 2×4 with additional 2x2s in front (likely to add extra insulation before I removed it for the coop). Therefore, I had 5″ between the plywood wall and the interior of the full “stud” to tie into.

I cut two 31 1/2″ lengths of 2×2 and screwed them into the interiors of two studs separated by two studs (that’s a bit confusing, but you’ll see the picture momentarily). This brought the exterior width of the two braces just under 4′ at 46 1/2″.

I screwed each horizontal brace into its proper stud, ensuring the tops of both braces were level with each other, roughly 24″ above the floor (the floor isn’t perfectly flat). Since the lumber of the studs twists, and there’s an additional 2×2 on each stud, I had to shim between the brace and the studs to help make a right angle against the interior wall. When building a chicken coop, things aren’t always going to be perfect, but that’s alright — we’re not building fine cabinetry.

With the horizontal braces properly mounted, it was time to cut the angled pieces to complete the triangular bracing (using the wall/studs as the vertical portion). With a 31 1/2″ horizontal cut, a 45° angle would be appropriate to achieve three roomy roosting bars.

So I measured and marked 2 1/2″ from the ends of the horizontal 2x2s (this would be where the first 1×3 bar would be positioned). The horizontal and vertical distances of the angled braces would then have to be 29″ each, with the total exterior length (measured with the Pythagorean theorem) being 41 1/8″.

Using the mitre saw, I cut two 42″ pieces of 2×2. I then cut one end of each piece at 45°.

Going back to the horizontal braces, I positioned each of the 45° cuts firmly against the wall, offset but touching the horizontal pieces, and measured where I’d have to perform the other 45° cut in order to have the measurements needed.

After those cuts, I put the angled pieces in place, screwing the tops (using #8 2″ or 2 1/2″ wood screws) into the studs and the bottoms into the horizontal pieces. I then screwed in the 1×3 first bar at the 2 1/2″ “overhang” of the horizontal brace.

Here’s a progress picture from that part of the process:

Since I made the 45° cuts of the angled brace near the ends of the 2×2, I was left with near-perfect triangular blocks. I carefully cut them with the mitre saw (using a hold-down stick) to make them more uniform.

I then screwed these four blocks into the angled brace in order to have a flat surface to tie the other 1×3 bars into. I distanced the top of the first set about 17″ from the first bar and the second set about 17″ from the first. This made the distance between the perches 12″ horizontally and 12″ vertically — plenty of space for our chickens!

Here are a few pictures to help explain:

And, of course, to bring it all together, Julia painted the bracing white (with zero-VOC paint). We decided not to paint the bars themselves as they were pretty worn and would be gripped regularly by the chickens’ feet.

Have a look at the finished product below:

We hope this roosting bar design, along with all the additional information, has been helpful and inspiring for you! It’s a fairly simple project, but it’s super fun to work with angles on the mitre saw. Here’s wishing you the best of luck building your own roosting bars!