Best Chicken Coop: Easy to Clean, Easy to Move!
This post will share the absolute best chicken coop that is easy to clean and easy to move.
This post contains affiliate links. This is NOT a sponsored post. I just love this coop!
I started shopping for a chicken coop a few months ago and quickly realized that what I was looking for almost didn’t exist. I wanted a coop that was:
- Easy to clean
- Easy to move
And it appeared, initially, there was no such thing.
I wanted these attributes because I’d slowly, over the course of the school year, been around a friend’s coop and realized what she had was a CLEAN coop. A clean coop doesn’t stink. A clean coop has happy chickens. A clean coop is a place where you can enjoy watching chickens be funny and charming and where you can collect eggs. My whole life I had thought that chickens were gross and I was completely wrong.
What is gross is poor animal husbandry practices, often practiced in coops that never move and are hard or impossible to clean.
I found the Omlet Eglu Coop and realized that while totally unusual-looking (it is kind of modern, and plastic!) it met every criteria I had in mind.
The coop itself (where the hens sleep at night and where they lay their eggs) is elevated off the ground which meets a chicken’s desire to find safety up high. Inside the coop, the back door easily opens and a tray slides out to allow for simple cleaning. The tray is where you’d place moisture-absorbing pine shavings, straw, etc and when you dump it in your compost pile, everything slides right off. It is easy to hose off or wipe clean with cleanser because the plastic is heavy duty and NON POROUS. This is hugely helpful. It is visibly, obviously better than wood because it can be easily cleaned. The smooth plastic is easily cleaned!
The roosting bars are removable (one-handed, even!) and easy to hose off as well. I’ll often remove them, give them a hose off, and let them dry just while I’m feeding the hens during the day.
The coop has a separate door to open to check for eggs in the nesting box. This area has a little sliding door you could shut to prevent hens from sleeping where they lay (you don’t want that, and my hens in this coop don’t have that issue so far).
The nesting box door is easy enough for kids to open but secure and weather tight.
We bought the automatic door which was a splurge that I’m grateful we chose. It closes automatically based on the light in the sky, or on the time of day (my 10 year old programmed it). It eliminates the rush to get home after sports practice or supper at friend’s to shut it. The door is also easy to affix to other coops – consider it if you have an existing coop! We love it.
The wheels beneath the coop allow for the run to be lifted a few inches for moving. My kids can move the wheels so the run is “up” and they are 8 and 10 years old.
The attached run is strong (much stronger than chicken wire) and assembled without power tools. It did take me and the kids all day to assemble the run and the second half of the coop (my husband only had time to assemble the base of the coop, the wheels, and the front coop wall before the work week began). The run clips together with strong clips and it was easy for the kids and I to see how it was supposed to go together.
I do wish the instruction manual had WORDS. It has clear illustrations, but I’m a reader and would have appreciated some written instructions. Their YouTube video was actually the best help, especially in assembling the coop. The kids would play it, we’d figure out exactly what we needed, and pause it for me when I was doing the next step.
There’s a door to the run that opens like a Dutch door and is easy to operate.
The smart feature on the run that I don’t see on other runs/coops is the wire ‘skirt’ that lays flat on the ground about 8 inches out. A predator doesn’t know to start digging in back away from the run wall; they want to start digging right where the skirt and run wall meet, which is impossible. It is really a smart design. When I move the coop (daily, or even twice daily) I have to kick the pinecones out of the way because they prevent that skirt from laying flat on the ground- you want it flat to prevent digging by predators.
The included feeder and waterer are really simple but really smart (like the rest of the coop). They keep food dry, water in, and are easy for my kids to manage.
There’s a variety of cool add-ons you could get like a walk in run attachement, perches and swings, and peck toys.
I think the only drawback to the Omlet Eglu Coop is the size. The coop is large enough to house 6 hens comfortably (more if you have bantams). The run would be snug, I think, with that many. You want the chickens to have plenty of space to themselves to dig, dust bathe, eat, etc. I have 4 and I’d consider adding just one more as I keep them in the run nearly all the time. So, Omlet would need to maybe add one more run extension, I think, for me to feel good about having 6 hens in that space. Of course, another extension to the run would make it heavier and more unwieldy to move so I’m sure that’s why that isn’t an option currently.
My family of 4 is loving the eggs that 6 hens are giving us this spring (I have two other hens in a wooden coop- check out my Instagram highlight to see the difference- the wooden coop pales in comparison). They are robust layers (2 Rhode Island Reds, 2 Ameracaunas, 1 Buff Orpington, and one Welsummer) and I have enough to give my Gram a dozen every week or so. We eat a lot of eggs (one of the many reasons we decided to get chickens) and this amount is working well for us.
My final recommendation is to warmly recommend the Omlet Eglu Coop to anyone who wants to keep 6 or fewer full size chickens safely contained and tractored around. It is easy to clean, easy to move, and is clearly the best chicken coop for this size of flock.
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