Feb

Chicken House Plans – Build a Great Chicken House

Making a great chicken house for you new birds will be a result of using well thought out plans. Indeed constructing a chicken house without adequate plans is a complete waste of money, time, building tools and materials. Having comfortable chickens should be top priority when choosing plans.

Giving your chickens enough space in their new home is vital for healthy birds. About 4 sq ft is the smallest space to allow for each chicken in its house. The first thing to decide on before building work starts, is how many chickens you will be looking after. Chicken house plans have never been that easy to design yourself. If you plan on keeping about 30 chickens, than you will need a chicken house of about 120 square feet. Giving the birds plenty of space is great, but giving them a bit extra is superb. Giving them plenty of space to move and rest will mean more lovely eggs for you. Having too many chickens in too small a house is not a good cost cutting exercise. This will eventually result in disaster.

There is no excuse for overcrowding chickens when selecting or drawing up chicken house plans. It rather leads to negative effects like diseases, pests and cannibalism. Your chickens need plenty of fresh air in their home, lack of clean air will mean disease and sickness. They could be very weak and die eventually. Construct a perch for your chicken. The eggs should be kept free of droppings, this really is just good housekeeping. Ensure that you have boxes or any other type of containers under the perch to collect the droppings that come through. Broom handles make great perches for your chickens. This is a good way to keep disease free perches.

Also your chicken coop should be well ventilated to prevent the chickens from sweating. Chicken diseases are increased by sweating birds. Small windows and vents will allow your chickens sweat to escape. The best place for a window is anywhere away from any wind. This will enable a steady flow of fresh air and therefore reduces stale air.

Barring any unforeseen circumstances you should have a maximum of six chickens per nesting box. Make nesting boxes dark for best results. This makes the chicken feel comfortable and relaxed. To prevent the eggs from cracks you could place straw shavings in the nesting boxes.

When choosing or designing plans, security is important and unwanted visitors like foxes need to be kept out. Wood chosen must be strong and durable. Push your chicken house after construction to see if it is really strong. If you chicken house moves about then it really isn’t strong enough.

We hope you have fun building your new chicken house, and enjoy all those fresh free range eggs.