Building Chicken Coops the Easy Way
There are thousands of plans, designs and ideas for buildings used in housing chickens. They range from elaborate two story structures right on down to a small doghouse type dwelling surrounded by a few feet of chicken wire. Before you invest a lot of money and time setting up costly coops, learn about building chicken coops the easy way and you can enjoy the fruits of your labor sooner.
Chickens are not demanding critters. Their needs are pretty basic. They need a place to get in out of the elements where the freezing weather won’t harm their eggs. Next on the list, they have to have space for their nests in order to lay eggs.
Since both eggs and chickens are considered tasty morsels by a wide variety of predators, the place built for chickens needs to be sturdy and well protected. Add a little food and water and they’re happy campers.
There are standard ways to build a chicken coop or you can create your own from scratch. Decide how large the dimensions should be for the area set aside for the chicken coop.
Take care not to put a chicken coop too close to your home for a couple of reasons. The noise can get pretty loud at times and downwind, a chicken coop doesn’t smell like roses. On the other hand, you don’t want to put the coop too far away either – both for the sake of convenience and so that you can keep an eye out for predators.
No matter how fancy a chicken coop is, don’t forget that it has to be cleaned on a regular basis to cut down on odor and bug infestations. One of the mistakes those new to raising chickens do is they build coops where the floor is completely level.
Isn’t that the way to build a house? Yes, but not a hen house – because when you go to wash it out, all of that stuff will pool right at your feet. Not a pretty thought or sight. Instead, you want to build the floor with a tilt at the back of it.
Building a chicken coop the easy way includes an easy clean up. With a slightly tilted floor at the rear of the house, when you spray it down during cleaning, all that icky stuff will wash down the slant and right out the back door of the coop.
Put a chicken wire fence all around the coop to keep unwelcome guests out. Remember that some animals will dig beneath fences to get into the chicken coop, so play it smart and bury the fence partly below the ground. Building chicken coops the easy way makes the work of owning chickens easier in the long run.