In some places the door that the chickens use to access the coop is called the “pop hole.” We learned with our prior houses that having this door elevated a foot or so off the ground has several advantages. I should say that it’s no problem for a healthy chicken to hop up to get through the door, so there aren’t really any disadvantages. By having the door elevated, the bedding litter on the ground say out of the opening. The height provides one more level of defense from predators and pests, at least from short, non-climbing ones. If the chickens use the little ramp that we made for them, we find that they track less mud into the house on rainy days. The ramp is hinged so that we can fold it up as an extra door barrier. The primary door is a piece of 1/16″ thick aluminum that is automatically operated on a vertical slide.