Boondock Ranch builds every coop, from the Chicken Cottage to the Deluxe Chicken Palace, with real plywood walls instead of SmartSide or chipboard, because plywood handles East Texas humidity and daily flock mess with less maintenance risk. All coops are built in East Texas with plywood designed to last.
What’s the difference between plywood and SmartSide for coop walls?
Real plywood is a solid panel made from layers of wood veneer bonded and pressed together. SmartSide is an engineered wood siding made from wood strands bonded with resin and finished at the factory. Boondock Ranch builds every hen house wall with real plywood: never chipboard, never SmartSide.
Why does East Texas humidity make the wall material matter?
East Texas summers bring heavy humidity, sudden downpours, and long stretches of heat that put stress on any building material. A working coop also deals with daily moisture from waterers, mud on wet mornings, and the general mess that comes with keeping a flock. Solid plywood handles that kind of gradual moisture exposure without depending on a perfect factory finish staying intact at every seam and cut edge. Boondock Ranch builds every coop in East Texas, for East Texas conditions, which is part of why the wall material matters as much as the design.
How does maintenance compare between plywood and SmartSide?
Engineered sidings like SmartSide are built to perform well, but manufacturer guidance for that kind of product typically calls for sealing every cut edge, keeping expansion gaps correct, and staying current on repainting. Skip one of those steps, a scratch left unpainted, a cut edge left open, and moisture can start working into the panel over time. That is a lot to track for anyone running a working farm and keeping an eye on a flock at the same time. Real plywood does not carry that same list of upkeep steps to hold its structure, which is one reason Boondock Ranch builds with it instead.
Why did Boondock Ranch choose real plywood?
The short answer: we do not want to hand a customer a coop that starts breaking down because a maintenance step got missed during a busy season. Plywood is more forgiving of the small installation and upkeep mistakes that happen on a real, working farm, and it holds up to the moisture, mud, and daily wear that comes with keeping the Ladies. Treated lumber goes where moisture resistance is needed most, and rough-cut pine is used for the roosting bars and laying boxes, the surfaces the hens actually sit on. Each material does the job it is best suited for instead of asking one panel to handle everything.
Your Chicken Lady already has enough to keep track of between feed schedules and keeping predators out. She doesn’t need a maintenance checklist for the walls too. That is a good excuse to leave the caulk gun in the shed and let her run to Tractor Supply instead, where she will definitely not buy any more chickens.
The bottom line
Plywood and SmartSide are both legitimate building materials, but they ask different things of the person maintaining them. Boondock Ranch chose real plywood because it is more forgiving of a busy schedule and holds up to the specific mix of humidity, heat, and mess that comes with a working coop in East Texas.
Ready for a coop built to handle East Texas conditions without a maintenance checklist? Request a quote for your custom Boondock Ranch coop today.
Frequently asked questions
Does Boondock Ranch use chipboard or SmartSide in its coops?
No. Every coop wall is built from real plywood. Boondock Ranch does not use chipboard and does not use SmartSide siding.
Why is plywood a better fit for East Texas humidity?
Plywood is a solid wood panel that handles gradual moisture exposure without depending on a perfect, unbroken factory finish at every seam and cut edge, which matters in a climate with heavy humidity and sudden downpours.
Does SmartSide require more maintenance than plywood?
Manufacturer guidance for engineered wood sidings like SmartSide typically calls for sealing cut edges, keeping expansion gaps correct, and staying current on repainting. Real plywood does not carry that same list of upkeep steps to hold up structurally.
Which Boondock Ranch coops are built with plywood walls?
Every Boondock Ranch coop, including the Chicken Cottage, the Chicken Castle, and the Deluxe Chicken Palace, is built with real plywood walls.