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Posts Tagged ‘chicken coop designs’

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.

If you search over the internet for chick house designs, you might not have much luck and find what you want. Many of the search engines will give you results for mature chicken house designs. Getting chick house designs can be quite disheartening and it is even easier to merely take chicken house designs instead. Just modify them to incorporate the unique needs of your chicks.

One means to set this is to use designs meant for small chicken houses. Just alter them to meet the requirements of being a chicken house. Make sure that the requirements for the chicks are met. Chicks must to be kept completely warm and dry when they are young and still have their down feathers or until about six to eight weeks of age. If you have humid conditions such as in the Pacific Northwest, it is very essential that the chicks stay indoors during the whole duration of that stage. Getting them wet might cause them to get sick and die. Moreover, your chick house should be granted with natural sunlight to retain the moisture levels low in the interior of the chicken house.

Another hint on chick house designs modification is that after the chicks have come into adult feathers, they will want a small run. Secure this from predators as this is the place where they will scratch for feeds and stay while outdoors.

The final tip on chicken house designs modified into chick house is to ascertain that you make the chick house simple to clean up as cleanliness at this stage is very important. You should preserve the chick house clean and dry always. Making easy clean up will do good not only for the chick, but to the individual who is assigned to retain the chick house clean.

Check out mychickenhouseplans.org for information on Chicken House Plans and designs.

For related topics to this posts, check out how to Everyday Magazine Efrontiers Blog for more reference. Also see Plans Chicken Coop for related articles.

chicken coop plans

You don’t want to forget this critical part of your chicken house plans.

Building from chicken house plans without nesting boxes is like building your own house without a bedroom.  Well, sort of.

You need nesting boxes for several reasons, the first being its importance to the chickens themselves.  The nesting box is that safe, comfortable place for the chicken to relax that is usually away from the light and in the shade.
A good rule is one nesting box for every three and up to five hens. When a hen is ready to lay an egg, she will search for that quiet, private place – something that is soothing and safe.  The nesting box fills this purpose and gives the chickens that safe, comfortable place to lay eggs.

Nesting boxes are not only beneficial to the chickens, but they are helpful for those folks who are raising chickens as well.Basically, it centralizes the area for egg production and keeps your chicken house organized.Without a nesting box, a hen will search around and lay her egg wherever she sees fit.Then you would have a real egg hunt when it was time to get eggs from your chicken house.  Another benefit for the chicken raising folks, nesting boxes makes it easier to collect the eggs and to determine freshness.You can determine the freshness of certain eggs because of the order and time you collect your eggs from the nesting boxes.

Fine, Now How Do You Make A Nesting Box?

Size is important to remember when making nesting boxes.  They need to be small enough for the chicken to feel safe and comfortable.However, you cannot make them so small that you can’t clean them.  A good sized nesting box is about one-foot square, but you can check with your local feed store or veterinarian for the breed of chickens that you are raising. 
For more on the design of the nesting boxes, read the rest of the article here for complete chicken house plans

chicken house plans

Chicken House Plans

There’s an old saying that goes about people . . . “don’t plan to fail; they fail to plan.” (I believe that was Harvey MacKay). Same holds true for your Chicken House Plans. You want to have plans so that your baby chicks wil grow in a healthy, safe environment. There are as many reasons families want to raise chickens as there are people. In our particular family, we were given a “gift” of about a dozen baby chicks one fine Easter morning. I first thought, “oh no, what am I going to do with all these chickens???” However, I remembered another great saying “if life hands you lemons, make lemonade.” (I promise, no more quotes). I was not thinking of eating the little chicks, but the thought of low-cost eggs sounded like a great idea to me. I was reveling in the thought about how fun it would be — a family project to build a chicken house, and soon we would be enjoying our own organically fresh eggs. It was a one-time investment that if done correctly, it could pay off for years just in fresh eggs alone. So when you are looking for the best Chicken House Plans, consider these following steps in your plan. The first thing you need to plan is where you will locate your new chicken house. From this point, you will know what your limitations are. One thing to be mindful about is that a basic 4 by 8 foot structure. This makes it easy on the materials sides because most plywood and other materials come in 4 x 8 foot sheets. Secondly, you want to establish the frame for the chicken house play area. This can be done by attaching by nails or screws the bottom of four pieces together. (You really should use screws that you can drive with an electric screwdriver. This makes it easy to disassemble in case you ever need to move your chicken house; you can simply unscrew the wood and away you go!) When this is finished, you can secure two corner sections, consisting of two parts that make up each corner. With the framework finished, the play area can be closed off with chicken wire. Once your chicken house frame is done, you can begin witht the actual house. You would probably want to consider if you are installing some sort of chicken house door, and if so, where the location would be. For our family, it was better to put the door near the back nesting area, which helps with your egg hunts down the road. How you attach the door is going to be determined by what kind of door you would like. One idea that we used was a door near the nesting area, which opened upward. Our door had a long wooden dowel added to prop in the “up” position so we could easily access inside the chicken house. Next you should install the roof. Plywood (which comes in 4 x 8 foot sheets) is perfect for this, but you can check with your local lumbar supplier to see if your location requires a different type of building material. Once the roof is up you can move forward with the nesting area of your chicken house. Here, the size is going to depend on the number of chickens you want to raise. A basic 4 foot by 8 foot chicken house is probably enough room to raise 10 chickens. For our nesting area, we made two support from 4 foot sections attached on both sides of our frame to support the nesting box. With the support in place, you can build a basic nesting box out of plywood to place on this support system. The nesting area usually goes near a back wall away frorm the front entrance (and near that door location for eeasy acces to the eggs. In the front of your chicken house you want to cut an opening, much like the size of a small pet door, so that the chickens can access the chicken house play area. When you’re finished with your chicken house, make sure you sand all the rough edeges and corners smooth and safely cut or bend all chicken wire out of the way from harm. You also want to double check that no sharp edges of the chicken wire protrude and are either removed or bent in such a way that they will not harm the chickens. Ventilation and lighting are critical to your chicken’s health and welfare. You may want to have open sides that can be closed with hinged doors made of plywood. That way you can open the doors in the daytime hours for light and ventilation, and they can be closed in the evening or when you need to protect the chickens from bad weather. When it comes to chicken house floors, you have some options. Most folks use sawdust, but some farms and others have access to hay or use straw. Others even use sand at the bottop of their chicken house. Check with your local feed store or veterinarian to see what is the best material for the weather conditions in your area. Having a solid chicken house will provide your chickens with a safe, healthy environment where they can grow and prosper. For us, the kids enjoyed watching the chickens grow, and they loved getting the eggs for our breakfast table. Enjoy your flock of chickens, and make sure you consider these steps in your Chicken House Plans

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When doing a blueprint for your chick coop construction project, remember that it can be a challenge to make the best chick coop. Just before that construction, read this article further. You might have several options like starting from scratch but you might opt to take a small chicken coop and alter the plans to be used as a coop by your chicks. Chicks however have different needs from the small chickens and adult ones. These requirements vary from those of mature chickens too. With the chicks hatching, they demand to be kept incubated. They still retain at this moment the down feathers for their protection. In this delicate stage, they need to be kept warm and dry, so remember these facts in mind always. 

Make it sure that there are many windows facing the sun during the morning.  This will aid to retain your chicks with natural warmth. Because they will spend the first six weeks or so inside the coop, the chick coop must be constructed in a way that it must allow the chicks to remain warm, dry and secure. 

After the chicks have come into full feather, they will need to take a mini run to go outdoors. Moreover, have the doors face the morning sun as chickens are morning creatures.  They love to be outdoors during the early part of the day and late afternoon. If possible, have the run in the shade in case the chicks desire to keep themselves cool during a hot weather. 

As a final tip, just verify that your plan included all the necessary requirements. Just before you break the ground, have the materials and tools accessible for efficiency.Never get to the middle of the project without getting hold of all the necessary tools. Read all the directions carefully and be guided by your chick coop construction plan, you will have more success if you just stick to what was planned.

Check out mychickenhouseplans.org for information on Chicken House Plans and designs.

For related topics to this posts, also check out Chicken Coop Designs Blog for more reference. Also see Plans Chicken Coop for related articles.