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Posts Tagged ‘chicken coop design’

In building a chicken coop, there are many things that people don’t take under consideration, and they’re sometimes things that may finish up hurting their chickens in the long term. Agree with it or not, there’s much more to making a coop than just building it and inserting your chickens, so let’s take a look at the potential dangers in your coop.

Low Ceiling

You won’t think about this, but chickens are birds, and just because they do not fly well, doesn’t imply they don’t give it their best shot. Subsequently , if you have a low ceiling, the chickens are doubtless going to hurt themselves when they try and fly in the coop. If it is weirdly low, there is a chance the chicken will manage to wreck its neck.

This essentially isn’t something you want to see when you come out to feed your chickens in the morning, so remember, if you have to duck while fundamentally walking around in your coop, the ceiling is too low, that is something to think about in your chicken coop designs.

Exposed Wires

Chickens need lighting 14 hours every day to lay properly, and for you want a heat lamp in your chicken coop designs. This does not imply you must run an extension twine across your ceiling and let it sag. When you install the heat lamp, make sure that you either wire it into the ceiling, or at least fasten the core soundly to the ceiling so that your chickens don’t start running into the hanging wire. This will also cause difficulty in entering and going out of your coop, so make sure it is done the right way.

Poisons

you can always have some rodents rambling your coop, and while they can get exasperating, you mustn’t set out poisons, and this is for 2 reasons. One reason is that your chickens will eat the poison and you’ll find them dead the following morning. There’s one other reason, and that is even if you’re smart, and put the poison out of the reach of your loved birds, the rodent that eats the poison will not always be that far away. Truthfully, your chickens will most likely try to attack announced rodent, and likely absorb the poison that way, ending with the same result.

Not Good Fence Design

If you don’t design your fence properly, your chickens will finish up dead one way or another. Make sure that you build the fence from chicken wire, or run some plastic chicken wire round the base of the fence so that the chickens don’t poke their head thru it and finish up getting hurt when a predator is near.

Poor Lighting

Some people forget that chickens do need light, and tend to leave the poor birds in the dark all day. This meddles with their laying habbits and not just bad for their health.

Make sure that you add in decent lighting when you’re doing your chicken coop designs, or you might meet with disastrous results. Those are a couple of the major failings in chicken coop designs, and hopefully by studying this piece, you have learned to avoid them altogether, and your chickens will live a long and productive life.

When I first came up with the idea of becoming a urban chicken farmer I thought that the whole process would be relatively straight forward. Just buy some chicks, buy a chicken coop and feed the chickens my leftover dinner table scraps. What a mistake to make! All these bits and pieces needed for a coop soon becomes too expensive.

I decided to come up with a spreadsheet of costs and identify areas in which I could save. The first was the chicken coop. I looked at the pre-built models and decided that they were way too expensive, so I decided to build my own chicken coop using a set of DIY chicken coop plans.

I searched the internet and found some free plans. However when I presented these to the owner of my local DIY store he laughed and said that I had better go back to the drawing board. Thank god I took his advice as the health of my chickens would be diminished by these plans. My main criteria when selecting which set of plans and guide to go for was the health and safety of my chickens. Next was how easy were the plans to read and did the plans come with step by step instructions.

There were so many sites advertising so many sets of chicken coop designs and chicken runs that I almost gave up! I was really confused and frustrated as the websites seem to be offering what I wanted and the guides seemed to fit my criteria. I ended up with 8 guides. Quickly seven of the guides I asked for a refund!

I eventually narrowed down my selection to three guides that I have now reviewed in full on my website. I chose these three guides as they simply fulfilled the above requirements. If you really want to build a coop then they are invaluable.

If you live in the suburbs and want to raise your own backyard chickens, there are a few easy ways that you can build attractive chicken coop designs that won’t upset the neighbors. You would want to check some suburbs city ordinances first.

There are some great chicken coop designs for small, backyard urban dwellers. One of the cutest is converting a child’s playhouse to a chicken coop. Other clever chicken coop designs use recycling, such as an old bunk bed frame to be enclosed with a plywood roof and the elevated floor is supported by the bottom bed slats. Coming up with chicken coop designs is easier for some than others, but you can find some great ideas, kits and plans on the Internet.

One of the larger children’s playhouses is one of the easily adapted chicken coop designs. Most of them are large enough to house up to 4 chickens. They already have a roof and windows with door, they mainly just need to have water and feeding stations added and if it is a full sized children’s playhouse, you can move old stuffed chairs in for nesting boxes. From the outside it looks like a playhouse, but the inside is an egg-laying operation.

The chicken coop designs that use garden sheds are great for this purpose, too. You can easily adapt a garden shed or outbuilding into a chicken coop. Some urban dwellers have built onto their home, multi-story “boxes” that look like outside stacking storage boxes with mesh wire fronts. These chicken coop condominiums are easily disguised to the untrained eye. Some of them has a top level penthouse, that forms a glassed in porch to provide warmth from the heat of the sunlight, yet allows you to open the windows to let heat out and ventilate the chicken coop.

Urban dwellers just need to use a little imagination, when it comes to chicken coop designs that blend with the exterior of their homes. You can easily build your own chicken coops with your own chicken coop designs that use some of the household goods and building materials you already have.

One creative urban dweller built a patio chicken coop using a brick retaining wall for the back side, enclosed the two sides with plywood and used mesh front cabinet doors for the front and left over shelving for roosting perches, an older kitchen countertop for the roof. It doubled as a supply table when he was using the outside grill, and it easily hosed out with the concrete floor.

Backyard chicken farmers can be urban dwellers and still raise their own fresh eggs with some creative chicken coop designs and a little ingenuity. One creative recycler hauled off front loading washers for free and lined them across his back fence, replaced the washer doors with mesh doors and turned them into individual chicken apartments that were housed in a gazebo-style chicken yard, hidden with flowering vines. It had cost him a little plus it was a great way to recycle and protect his chickens in his chicken coop designs. Chicken coop designs for urban dwellers are on the Internet, but you can come up with ingenious chicken coop designs using things you already have, in some cases.

If you are a backyard chicken farmer, you may be thinking of designing your own chicken coop after looking at all the different chicken coop designs on the Internet. This can be easy enough to do, but there are a few basic measurements to keep in mind when coming up with your own chicken coop designs.

The first thing to keep in mind is that a chicken needs at least 4 square feet and preferably 10 square feet to be the most comfortable. Doors on the chicken coop only need to be about a 1 foot high and 1 foot wide. Make sure they close tightly and latch, you can make them a little larger though. A raccoon is as smart as a toddler, so keep that in mind, since they love stealing eggs.

Roosts can be made from tree branches or old broom handles and step ladders, as long as they are about an inch and a half thick. Most chicken coop designs allow 18 inches between roosts, walls and other surfaces such as the roof or floor. Allow ten inches per chicken at a minimum and just make sure you can easily clean underneath them. Bantam chickens like a smaller diameter roost for comfort, so an inch is more appropriate.

When it comes to nesting boxes, most chicken coop designs allow for 1 foot wide, 1 foot deep and at least a 1 foot opening in the front. Putting at base on the front of 4 inches or taller will help keep the nesting material in. A deeply sloped roof is also the most desirable. You can estimate that you will need a nesting box for every 4 or 5 chickens, on the average.

Most chicken coop designs plan for an outdoor run so the chickens can be free to go in and out of the house. Chickens like to dig in the dirt, so loose soil 4 to 6 inches deep will allow them to roll in the dust, dig for grubs and enjoy the outdoors. The chicken coop needs to be roofed with a solid surface or fencing to keep predators such as hawks, eagles or owls from attacking you chicken. The fence shouls be 4 feet high.

When you are building protective fencing or the chicken run, most chicken coop designs recommend that you bury the fencing 6 inches deep and the outside of the perimeter should have the meshing bent upward in a 90 degree U-shape to discourage predators like dogs, rodents, raccoons and snakes that can come under the fence and steal eggs or chickens.

Chicken coop designs that allow for above ground chicken coops, such as mobile and stilted chicken coops that are in areas prone to flooding, recommend that above ground chicken coops have an inner floor that is 12 inches off the ground to prevent flooding and allow for ventilation, and keep the chickens off of the cold, moist ground. The roofs should have at least a 45 degree slope to keep the chickens inside the coop safe from the rain and snow. There are some chicken coop designs that are A-frames for this reason.

These are some of the basic guidelines that are common to many chicken coop designs but you can alter them slightly to fit your circumstances.

If you are a hobby chicken farmer, then you are looking at chicken coop designs and wondering how the children’s Easter chicks can turn into a backyard investment you hadn’t planned on. The cost of lumber can be quite high in some parts of the country, so chicken coop designs that use very much of it may not be what you had in mind.

A large dog house or a child’s play house can be made into attractive chicken coop designs. This will be good for a small chicken farming with just 4 or less leftover easter chicks. Sometimes, this is how chicken farmers start the part-time hobby on their backyards.

A simple triangular A-frame structures will be enough in some areas just make sure they are enclosed in a fenced area, secured from predators, with proper food and water. If you only have a few chickens, the easiest options for chicken coop designs might be to use large doghouses- a grown chicken should have at least 4 square feet and preferably 10 square feet.

For two chickens, a 3 by 3 feet doghouse or playhouse would be enough to accommodate the chickens as long as the can also run. Some chicken coop designs are mobile and you can install it onto a child’s wagon or a square, wheeled floor dolly for portability. This way you can move your chickens around and they will fertilize different parts of the yard and garden, while keeping grubs and insects under control.

If you have an old garden shed, you can find chicken coop designs to convert it. The same holds true of any existing outdoor buildings you aren’t using, as long as they protect the chickens from the elements, are well-ventilated, and secure from predators. Of course, many people don’t have existing outbuildings and the look at chicken coop designs to build their own.

You can recycle and use existing items to make it more affordable to build your chicken coop. Ingenious chicken farmers have converted bunk beds, old furniture, old cabinetry, bookshelves, entertainment centers and more into chicken coop designs for their children’s Easter chicks that are now laying eggs.

If you convert a child’s playhouse they have outgrown, using chicken coop designs, you might find that the child has a new interest in visiting the chickens and taking care of them. The best thing about converting existing items into chicken coop designs is that it costs very little and usually takes less time than building a chicken coop from scratch, (pardon the pun).

Make sure to find solutions for feeding and watering the chickens, and ventilation is important, as is protection from extreme hot and cold. Of course, you can always buy chicken coop designs if you are good at woodworking, and you can buy kits on the Internet, if you decide to get aggressive with your chicken-raising hobby. Many wants to have supply of organic, fresh eggs.

Of course, Easter chicks take a little bit to start producing eggs, so it gives you time to consider chicken coop designs before deciding which route to take.

There are many different ideas out there relating to chicken coop designs. If you do your research, you will find a plethora of choices to pick from. This can be both overwhelming and confusing so it is good to know what your situation is right off the bat. Some may just want fresh, organic chicken eggs in their own backyard without having to go to the local health food store to buy them. Others may actually want to eat and sell the eggs that their hens produce. No matter which category you fall under, you certainly have many chicken coop designs at your disposal.

When you design your coop you should keep in mind the following ideas:

Give your birds space to run around. Chicken will be very happy to run around so remember to have enough space for them to run around.

Give your chickens enough places to lay their eggs. Remember that there should be one nesting box allocated for every three chickens. They won’t mind sharing as long as they remain comfortable.

Build a good coop with doors. Remember to have door big enough to let you access the coop to collect eggs, feed the chickens and clean the area. Your coop should have 2 doors. One door for you to enter the coop for cleaning or gathering eggs and one door for the chicken to exit the coop with a ramp.

Always give your chicken some lights. Have a small bulb lit on in your chicken coop to keep the chicken warm and comfortable then the chicken will produce plenty of eggs for you.

Though some chicken coop designs can be a so overwhelming to make bear in mind that if you have proper training then it can be overcome. You can build a good chicken coop easily if you have the right chicken coop designs!

When you are considering raising your own backyard chickens, chicken coop designs are the next thing you consider. There are many free ideas online for chicken coop designs. There are several things you can learn by looking at the different chicken coop designs, even if you design your own. There are several factors that can be adapted to suit your individual needs.

Some things stay the same, no matter what chicken coop designs you look at. Insulation is essential to be added for cold weather climates and ventilation is needed to ensure the good health of your chickens. Chicken coop designs normally design holes for feed and watering containers and those should be placed about the height of a chicken’s back. If you are considering larger chicken coop designs, you may need more than one centrally located feeding and watering station. Also, you will need nesting boxes, lighting and a sloped floor is desired for ease in cleaning.

After you have narrowed down the chicken coop designs you like best, you can start to make the adaptations for your situation. {If you want a movable chicken coop, then you can add a frame with wheels, but keep in mind r that chickens may get stressed when you move them every now and then}. If you plan several smaller chicken coops, you can alter original chicken coop designs by dividing measurements in half, for example.

You need to allow at least four square feet per chicken, no matter what adaptations to chicken coop designs you consider. Avoid having too many chickens in a small space because they might pluck each other’s feathers out of stress and may not lay eggs.

Some chicken owners adapt chicken coop designs by adding skylights to let natural light in and warmth. A loft is placed on nesting boxes by few people so they can easily access the boxes and gather eggs without having to bend over. Extra windows are good for ventilation, so they may alter chicken coop designs to add closeable and lockable shutters over the mesh for night and bad weather.

You can adapt chicken coop designs by adding a chicken run, where you allow an opening for an outside, strong meshed fenced, chicken run. This lets the chickens be protected, yet have a place to stretch their legs and get fresh air. You also need protective fencing for an open chicken yard, if you are looking at chicken coop designs that are fixed, on stilts and concrete footings.

You would want to elevate your chicken coop from the ground so they won’t be reached by water in case it floods and to keep them away from predators that may harm or worse, kill them. Others build the houses on concrete footings into the ground, but have a raised, vented floor for drainage.

Whatever adaptations you make to chicken coop designs, you need to write them down, so that you will remember as you are building the chicken coop. It is easier to incorporate them during the building process than to add them later. In most cases, you have to assemble your chicken houses even if you purchased a kit, so better yet make a notes as you assemble them for any adaptation plans you have. Raising chickens is a sure fun hobby and aside from enjoying you’ll also get fresh eggs for your needs. The chicken coop designs you decide on can make your chickens happier and make your life easier.

Chickens and all the other animals need water to survive. There are many options you can select from when watering your feathered friends, and as with anything, there are good decisions and bad decisions. Let’s consider the best ways to give water to your chickens, of course, youll have to do it in anyway since water is a necessity for your chickens.

It is important to have a clean water supply near the coop, and the best way to do that, is to have a hose near the coop. Some people who have big chicken coops will want to install a faucet or actual sink inside the coop. As far as chicken coop designs go, that setup is fairly sound since you won’t have to trudge across the yard several times just to get water. If you really feel like it, you could even install a water filtration device to ensure that your chickens get only the best water.

Giving adequate water to your chickens can either be simple or complicated. There are some who would purchase a watering device and some would just put a tub of water in the coop. The watering devices consist of a silo-like body that contains water. It has a trough surrounding it to which the water is delivered, and the chickens are able to partake of it. The water is ejected through a hole and kept from flooding out. These containers can be of any size depending on the number of chickens that you have who will use the containers. Remember that if you get one that is too small, the chickens will drink it fast and you’ll end up having to refill it constantly. They may be small, but they really can drink a lot.

A much more interesting delivery system, and one that will take a lot of time and money as far as chicken coop designs go, would be an intricate waterworks system. The system would consist of pipes to a watering bowl and a large water tank. Such systems are usually homemade and expensive to implement. These are however, a good way to water your chickens, as you can have a huge water supply stored outside the coop.

The final thing you need to consider, is whether or not you’ll have the water on the ground. If you put the watering bowl in the ground you’ll have few problems. The first issue, is that chickens are barely conscious of there they use the bathroom. This means that they could do it on the ground, or just as easily in their water supply, therefore by having the water supply high up, you’ll stop them from soiling their water. The other problem is that chickens like to scratch, and if you have bedding in their coop, they’ll probably scrape all the bedding into their water trough. Once again, having the trough high up will solve this issue, and is one of the best chicken coop designs you can come up with.

Portable chicken coop designs are perfect when you have just a few hens that you want to move around your yard. Also known as chicken tractors, these little coops have a small area for roosting, eating, drinking, laying eggs and foraging. Since the coop is moved every few days to a week, your chickens are getting plenty of grass and bugs to supplement their diet.

You may wonder why you would want a portable chicken coop design. Moving the chickens around keeps them safe and secure while giving them new foraging grounds. They can be moved about the yard to eat grass, bugs and add their droppings to your yard for fertilizer. You can even move some of them onto garden areas at the end of the season so your chickens can glean anything leftover from harvest. They can also be used as fertilizers to your garden. The droppings will decompose over the winter, leaving your spring garden ready to grow more luscious produce for you the next season. In less than a week, with chicken that are not moved around, your backyard can be surprisingly reduced to bare earth. Then, it becomes a muddy every time it rains, and your chickens don’t get all that nutritious greenery to eat.

An easy chicken coop design that is portable is the ark. This is an A-frame that is triangular pen with wide base at the bottom and peak at the top. The ark can be made small or large. The only thing that should limit you for size is whether you can move it or not. The two-thirds of the ark is for outdoor run and one-third of it would be the coop. The coop should hold nest boxes and perches. A small opening lets the chickens out into the run. A larger door on the opposite side of the coop lets you in to gather eggs, feed the birds and clean out the coop. The chicken run has a door at the end so you can easily access. Arks can be moved by attaching long poles so two people can lift and move it, or they can be hooked up to a vehicle and towed.

Another A-frame type portable chicken coop design has the coop in the top third of the A-frame and the chicken run beneath it. The coop provides shade this way, and the chickens are able to sleep up off the ground in a protected area. Small doors at each end will allow you to clean and gather eggs conveniently. These coops are generally built to house two to four hens and are moved by hand.

Small portable chicken coop designs can also be imaginative. Build a chicken coop that has wheels for easy moving and so it can be moved even with a single person.

Portable chicken coop runs can be made from wire and PVC. You can even use a dog house as the coop itself with a few modifications to make it easy to access for egg gathering and cleaning.

While growing up, many of us cannot remember a time in our life when we did not own anyhens. We have childhood memories of going out and feeding chickens. Every day when we go out to feed the birds, we flash back to feeding the chickens as a child. A lot of people are fond of the childhood memories they have. Do you have childhood memories like this? Do you remember helping your parents build a chicken coop? There is a good chance that you have no idea what is exactly going on. Now, here you are, sitting there wondering how to build a chicken coop. As we write this article, we are going to give you some information that you need in order to build those birds a home.

First of all, before you even get the birds, you need to take the size into consideration. How big do you want you coop to be? If you ask me, my choice would be a big one. A lot of people prefer building a smaller chicken coop, so they can transport it. If you have no plans transporting your chicken, then you should build a big coop.

You will have to have a minimum of four square feet for every chicken that will be in the chicken coop. You will have to make your chicken coop as big as possible, so your chicken will lay more eggs and a stress free.

Besides, making the house big is not going to take much more work. Sure, it may take a bit more supplies, but those supplies are actually cheap.

Before you start to build this big house, you will need to figure out where to place it. It is important that you place the chicken coop in the right place; I recommend putting it in a place where the sunlight shines bright in the morning hours. Chickens love the morning sun, this is a known fact.

You will get you rbirds to lay the maximum number of eggs when placing them in the morning sunlight and having them in a safe and stress free environment.

You should note that you will only need few material to build your chicken coop and these materials won’t be expensive at all. Basically, you need some wood, nails, mesh wire and a hammer. To protect your chicken coop even more, you might want to consider to put some shingles on your roof.

When you have the frame put up, you may need some help when it comes to putting the roof on. At this point, when you have the roof on, it will be time to put that mesh wire up. No matter what you do, even if you have to put a ton of nails and staples through it, we highly recommend you not leaving any gaps between that wiring. If you leave gaps, you will make it easy for those predators to grab one of your birds. There are many wild animals out there that would love to have your chicken for dinner. In the end, you will find that building a cage is really fun. Now that you know how to build a chicken coop, it is time to get going.

For a step by step guide on how to build a chicken coop visit Chicken Coop Plans