Plans for Chicken Coops – 3 Top Tips For A Successful Project

If you have been looking for a ready-made chicken coop, you will understand how high-priced a fully assembled model can be. They can cost you as much as a thousand bucks and that’s before you pay to get it sent to your home. By means of allocating fund towards chicken pen plans, you’ll be able to make a poultry coop that will keep your flock of chickens healthful as well as safe from weather conditions and predators. Listed below are three questions to ask yourself while shopping for coop plans.

Will it keep your flock well?

Nearly all professionals are in agreement that it’s better to have ample breathing space rather than not enough. Hen overfilling often leads to plucking of feathers, dwindling levels of eggs being laid, and, in severe cases, cannibalism. This is evidently unhealthy for the birds and it also results in lower egg quantity and quality for yourself.

Plans for chicken coops should permit at least four square feet of space for each chicken. It’s true that the bare minimum room necessary for any hen will vary with variety, with bigger chickens requiring rather more space. Check out a professional internet site or a book to determine the amount of room your variety requires so you can get step-by-step plans that are sized-up appropriately.

Ventilation is one more essential factor if you want hale and hearty hens. Devoid of good aeration, the ammonia which comes from the fecal matter builds up, creating a nosehair-burning odor that will trouble you and the hens. Make sure the coop design supplies an abundance of clean air to your flock.

Does it keep the your flock of chickens safe?

From digging predators to slithering snakes, there are actually a lot of critters who’ll see your chicken coop as an all-they-can-eat smorgasbord. To stop your backyard from becoming a nature documentary, use blueprints which include safety measures.

For instance, step-by-step plans for coops should incorporate a fenced run. This keeps out a host of predators including raccoons and the arch-predator of chickens: crafty foxes. For most runs, conventional wood or wire fences at least six feet in height will put off natural predators. Now if you have a dogged carnivorous animal, chicken keeping professionals suggest running wire mesh approximately 12 inches down into the earth underneath the fence.

Think the traditional-sized chicken wire will keep your animals out of harm’s way? Think again. Normal meshing is big enough to allow raccoons to let their paws slip through to claw away at the birds. Chicken keeping professionals advise using one-half inch square mesh on fencing and any window covering to stop raccoons and other critters from injuring your flock of chickens.

Plans for chicken coops must also include another predator-annoying element: a door that closes without human intervention at the end of the day. Installed light sensors permit the coop door to roll open every sunrise and then close again when it is dark.

Does it make it easy to use?

Blueprint plans for hen houses must also include ways for making it unproblematic to wash the house and collect the laid eggs. Lots of chicken coops contain nesting box doorways which mean you can gather the laid eggs without difficulty. If you happen to be planning a smaller hen house, it might have a hinged roof that provides you complete access to the inside of it. Larger chicken coops usually have a people-sized entrance that permits you to march straight inside the building for washing and upkeep.

No matter what blueprint plans for chicken coops you use, keep in mind of the fact that the coop must keep your chickens strong and safe and also be trouble-free to work with.