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Build Your Own Chicken Coop – Important Considerations.

2016/5/3 17:02:38

Keeping chickens is gaining popularity all the time. It’s really not surprising as in return for the low cost of keeping chickens you benefit from having friendly pets, less insects and bugs in your garden, free fertiliser, fresh, tasty free range eggs and for some, a tasty healthy meal! One of your key decisions will be how to house and protect your chickens. What kind of chicken coop will you have to build. Which type of coop will best fit your needs… an important decision… for getting optimal results.

There are many considerations that you need to work through. The most important of these are size, whether the coop should be portable or fixed, how to protect your chickens against predators, protection against poor weather, and a myriad other things like feeding, watering, cleaning and so on.

Your first consideration should be the size of the chicken coop. It is one of the most important factors to be considered as it plays a major role in determining the health and productivity of your chickens. Normally chicken coop plans come in small, medium, and large sizes.

One of the biggest mistakes that can be made is to opt for a chicken coop that is too small. Chickens require space to move around in. If they are too cramped for space, they often stop laying eggs and you can also expect them to be less healthy. You really should not compromise on space.

It is fare better to err on the side of a bigger coop. It will provide you with healthier more productive chickens, and will also allow you to slightly expand your operation.

The next question you should ask yourself is whether you want your chicken coop to be PORTABLE or if you preferred one that’s FIXED instead. Portable chicken coops give you the advantage of being able to move it around to wherever you are, so if you’re someone who likes to keep the chickens as pets, this makes for a very attractive option.

A benefit of having a mobile chicken coop allows for easier maintenance since you can simply move the chicken coop to wherever you need to clean it. On the downside, watering and feeding becomes more of an effort, and protection against predators is a bit more difficult.

A fixed chicken coop on the other hand, tends to be stronger and it allows you to permanently fit feeders and watering resources. Fixed chicken coops are able to withstand the elements better as well.

Protection against the elements and predators are often overlooked. You need to consider what predators you are most likely to encounter. Foxes are a major threat and if they gain access to your coop, you may loose your whole flock in one night, but there are also stray dogs, otters, birds of pray and off course the weather, Carefully evaluate which threats you need to protect against and accommodate it in your design. A solid fencing system will go a long way to keep all varieties of predators out. This will have to be built to match the size of the coop you’re building. Caution… if you plan to provide a chicken run as well, and if you are located in an area where birds of prey are in abundance, you need to cover the top of the chicken run as well.

Less we forget… appearance is an important factor as well. This will likely influence the cost of the building process, so it’s something to think about and work within your budget.

There are definitely cheaper methods to build your chicken coop so understanding the different things that will influence the cost is the first step to making a smart decision.

Paying careful attention to the above considerations will help you decide on the type and size of chicken coop that you build. It is always a good idea to get as much information as possible up front before you start to design and build your chicken coop. Careful planning will help save you a bundle of cash over the long run.

Want to learn from experts on how to go about designing and building your own Chicken Coop? Then visit Luke Jefferson’s blog to learn more about important design considerations that you need to incorporate!