Omlet Eglu Go Up Review: Best Chicken Coop In 2023?

In this Omlet Eglu Go Up Review, I'm going to revisit this chicken coop as someone who has been keeping chickens in it for over 2 years and try to answer the big question: would I buy it again if I were choosing a coop now?

One of the most empowering things I've done to become more self sufficient is to start keeping chickens in my garden.

Apart from their daily eggs and garden-fertilising droppings, they remind me that I'm just a small part in the natural cycle of life. I find being around them quite grounding and I do enjoy watching their funny habits and individual characteristics and personalities as they scratch and peck around the garden.

If you've never considered keeping chickens, I hope this omlet eglu go up review will help you find the motivation and confidence you'll need to do it because honestly, it is one of the best things I've done in my battle for self sufficiency.

Eglu Background

Eglu is the quirky and frankly, pretty clever, name of a chicken coop that was first designed way back in 2003 by Royal College of Art students James Tuthill, Johannes Paul, William Windham and Simon Nicholls who joined forces to create Omlet, the company behind the Omlet Eglu Go Up.

Legend has it, the idea for the Eglu coop came from the real life problem of creating a hen house that would make chicken keeping accessible for the would be suburban chicken keeper, like you or I, rather than be the exclusive remit of farmers and country-folk.

Thus was born the Omlet ‘Eglu' and it was an immediate success with the ‘middle-class' and the company went on to win award after award in those first few years.

Since then, the range of omlet eglu chicken coops has grown from the simple and original ‘Eglu' to now include the Eglu Cube. Eglu Go Up, Eglu Go and Eglu Classic but the initial design mission remains the same: to make keeping chickens in a garden simple and accessible for most people.

Eglu Go Up Design

The first thing you notice about the Eglu Go Up is the design; in particular, the bright colour of the coop and the quirky shape.

One of the things that made the Eglu stand out originally was the fact that it was constructed from moulded plastic, rather than the wooden chicken coop you had grown up thinking of.

Plastic Coop vs Wood Coop

Being made of plastic gives it several of advantages over wood;

1. Plastic does not seem to attract mites the way that wood does (and less mites mean less respiratory or mite problems amongst your flock.)
2. The ability for bright colours to be added into the design – and that's exactly what strikes you first when you see an Eglu – it'll most likely be a bright colour, more befitting a toy chest than a chicken coop.
3. Plastic doesn't rot as quickly as wood so you will need to replace a plastic coop far less than you would a wooden coop.
4. Being made of a dual wall plastic provides a layer of air between the sheets and the air acts as insulation to stabilise the temperature inside the coop. This is true in both summer time and winter time.
5. Ventilation is built into the design, with air vents at either side of the eglu go up coop and positioned near the roof. This is a clever design element so I'll talk a bit more about that below. This creates an all-round happier environment for the chickens without you having to go out to open a window or vent manually.

Extremely Cleverly Designed Ventilation Mechanic

The ventilation is worth a little extra explanation on it's own.

The vents are moulded into the plastic high up in the coop walls. They are a distinct downward sloping shape and this is important for 2 reasons:

1. The high position allows hot air (and ammonia from chicken manure) to leave the coop (because hot air rises).
2. The shape of the vents are aerodynamically designed, making the falling cool air from outside the coop to ‘slipstream' past the vents. This has the effect of stabilising the temperature inside the coop in both summer and winter.

I'm not one for overly bright colours or anything that draws too much attention to what I'm doing so I opted for the plain green, but the Eglu Go Up also comes in purple too.

Raised Coop

Next, with the Eglu Go Up at least, you'll notice an attractive looking box, perched up on a metal frame which, to be honest, looks pretty nice.

The raised coop is an excellent design element for a few of reasons:

1. It keeps the coop floor off the ground which means the ground can't transfer cold into the coop.
2. It offers some protection from predators by being raised off the ground.
3. The chickens enjoy roosting and nesting off the ground.

The Eglu Go Up Has Wheels

Another cool design feature; you'll also see a pair of wheels at the back.

This is yet another brilliant design quirk, especially for suburban chicken keeping.

Chickens destroy lawns. If they are in your garden in the same spot, they will destroy the grass if they aren't moved around.

The wheels simply drop into place when a move is required and you simply pull the coop to it's new destination.

In regenerative agriculture or pasture-reared poultry, using chicken tractors to move the chickens to a different part of the pasture every week is a fantastic way to fertilise the patch the chickens sit on without destroying it.

A similar, smaller scale approach can happen in your garden.

Extendable Chicken Run

Attached to the Eglu chicken coop is a 2m extendable chicken run. ie. it is 2m out of the box and you can buy extra run in 1m additions.

Each element of the run comes with a predator screen which extends beyond the boundary of the coop by about 30cm which gives you extra protection against digging foxes.

The standard version of the Eglu Go Up comes with a 2m run and is the version I bought.

All in all it looks pretty neat with a pleasing aesthetic and a functional looking design that will sit well in any garden whether in the city or the country.

Eglu Go Up Specifications

You might think you'd need a lot of space to keep chickens but it may surprise you to know that you only need about 1 sq metre of space per chicken.

That's based on the size of the run alone.

The coop itself (the plastic ‘house') can accommodate 4 chickens and my 4 seem quite comfortable in there. I wouldn't go for any more than 4 chickens in the Go Up Coop though as that would be quite a squeeze.

I have the standard 2m run but I open the coop and let them free range in the garden during the day so the run size itself is not a limiting factor in my case. I do have to fence off my veg though because once they get into the veg…it won't last long!

The actual floor space of the Go Up out of the box (after being built of course!) is 144cm x 218cm. This is sufficient for 2 chickens.

Full Dimensions

Putting Together The Eglu Go Up Coop

When you receive the Eglu Go Up, it will arrive in 4 separate boxes. These can be quite heavy so it helps to have a friend around with you when you decide to unbox it and set it up.

The instructions for putting it together are straightforward and I didn't find any nasty surprises.

The only bit I got a little puzzled by was how to attach the shade to the roof of the run with the toggle cord but eventually I figured it out: you have to loop the cord into itself and then attach it to the run.

Omlet have a pretty good array of videos to help you out though and this installation video is pretty easy to follow.

It's important to note though that if you plan on keeping 4 chickens in your Go Up, that you buy the run extension to 4m or let them free range your garden because each chicken needs a comfortable 1sq meter of space.

They do occasionally decide to lay somewhere else completely though and I'm not entirely sure why this is the case. It has happened once before when one of my chickens (my Pied Suffolk, Midnight) was brooding. As she was brooding the others seemed to want to stay out of her way and started laying in a compost bin (with fresh grass clippings).

Every now and then I'll find an egg in a random but secluded place but generally speaking, they do lay in the Eglu Go Up Coop nesting box.

Whenever they decide to start laying somewhere else, I'll go out of my way to leave an egg or two in the Go Up nesting tray and that seems to remind them where they should be laying.

Using The Eglu Go Up Chicken Coop (For 2 Years)

Given that my Eglu Go Up Coop has been used substantially every day for over 2 years, it has stood the test of time pretty well.

There has been some discolouration to the sun shade, where the colour has faded from the bright green of the moulding to a lighter, paler green that doesn't look so pretty these days but still serves its purpose.

You can buy a new one if you really want to over at Omlet but really; the function is exactly the same so why bother?

There has also been a small bit of rusting at the slots where I drop the door clasps into – probably because I do this at least twice every day and over time, I've probably scratched the green coating paint off the top to open the steel wiring run to the elements and ravage of time.

Other than these minor complaints, the Eglu Go Up has been a solid coop, and a solid investment (they've now increased in price about 20% from when I bought mine) and this increasing price seems to be a trend that won't be going away any time soon.

Coupled with supply chain disruption that spans both raw materials processing and distribution, I'd be inclined to advise anyone thinking of buying a coop at some point in the future to do it sooner rather than later.

Every Day Use

The design is such that using the coop on a daily basis is really very simple.

In order to appreciate fully how simple it is to use on a daily basis; I'll run you through my tasks each day:

1. 6.30am: Top up the feeding tray and place it in the coop
2. 6.35am: Open the coop and run door and let the chickens out for the day
3. 10.30am: Open the door at the rear of the coop to check for eggs
4. 10.35am: Clean the coop
5. 2.30pm: Open the rear door and check for eggs (I don't like to leave eggs in the coop too long)
6. 9pm (or when the sun goes down): Check that all chickens are in the coop and close the coop door.
7. 9.05pm: Remove the feeding tray from the run and lock the run up for the night.

I remove the food from the run every night to discourage pests (mice) from popping in for a bite to eat.

The only other task that isn't on this list is the cleaning which I do every few days but that deserves a section of its own.

As you can see, it gets quite a lot of use and it has held up perfectly as expected within the 2 years that I've had it.

Cleaning The Eglu Go Up Coop

Cleaning the Eglu Coop was one of my main concerns when I was thinking of getting chickens for the back garden. I knew how problematic wooden structures could be and they generally tend to require annual maintenance.

Plastic, on the other hand, is easier to clean and maintain and aside from the fading colour over time, doesn't really take much looking after.

Another big reason for choosing the Eglu because of its plastic construction was knowing that plastic attracts less mites. Mites are a common problem in wooden chicken coops and the Eglu Go Up seems to remove that problem altogether.

The Eglu's Removable Droppings Tray Makes Cleaning The Coop Very Easy

Chickens, if you didn't know, poo a lot. It sometimes feel like every time you look outside to see how they're doing you're going to get a glimpse of at least one of them making fresh droppings.

Given the frequency of their excretions, the coop gets pretty dirty, pretty quick. I have to wipe it down every few days at the most and definitely once a week at the least.

And this is where the Eglu Go Up really shines.

It is so easy to clean, I can't imagine doing it any other way. In comparison to wooden coops, where you have to walk in and sweep up every few days, the Eglu has a removable tray which easily slides out from under the nesting tray.

I take that tray straight over to the compost bin (or into my chicken fertilizer making buckets) and put all of the droppings in there straight from the tray. I then give the tray a quick wet wipe and it's done and ready to go back in for another few days.

It really is painless.

Omlet Eglu Go Up Review: Final Thoughts

When I first got my Eglu Go Up, I was hugely excited to get started. It made the idea of keeping chickens much less daunting. And it looked good.

It took me a couple of weeks to fully get into the rhythm of things but honestly, since then, it has been a painless and pleasurable experience.

It looks great, it cleans easily and my chickens love it.

The only complaints I have are that the colour on the sun shade has faded and the clasp on the run door has rusted a tiny bit but really, after two years of keeping chickens, hundreds of eggs and 4 happy chickens, if those are the only things I'm complaining about it I'm a pretty happy man.

That's why I can still highly recommend the Eglu Go Up Coop to anyone with a garden looking to get started keeping chickens – or even to add to their flock.

If I ever buy more chickens, and I'm sure I will, I will most likely get another Go Up.