Backyard Chicken Coop Plans: Keep Your Chickens Healthy and Happy

When it comes to backyard pets, chickens are some of the best to keep, as they not only give you fresh eggs but can also be an excellent source of meat if you need it. Keeping them is easy if you build from backyard chicken coop plans that suit your style. They make excellent pets, as they are quirky and odd, and they are a lot of fun to play around with.

Keeping your own chickens in your backyard is fairly easy, and drawing up the backyard chicken coop plans can be fairly easy. In order to keep chickens properly, you should ensure that the chicken hutches are built safely and that your chickens are protected from predators that would try to get their talons or claws on them.

Here are a few things to consider when drawing up your backyard chicken coop plans:

- You need to protect your chickens from predators, both in the air and on the ground. Your backyard chicken coop plans should include a box with three walls and a roof to protect your chickens from predators.

- You need to allow the chickens to peck at the soil for food, so you shouldn't include a floor section in your backyard chicken coop plans. Simply make a five sided box to allow your chickens access to the dirt and insects that they love.

- You should try to make a number of portable chicken hutches, as that will allow you to move the chickens around to fertilize different parts of your lawn. If you make portable chicken hutches, you can simply move the different hutches around by wheelbarrows, or you can install wheels on the hutches to make them easier to move.

- You should make the entire coop out of lightweight materials and chicken wire that will make it easy to move your entire operation easily. Don't make it out of wood that is too sturdy, as that will make it too heavy to move easily.

Once you have drawn up these backyard chicken coop plans and built a new home for your chickens, it's very easy to keep chickens as pets. One of the main benefits provided by keeping chickens as pets is the fact that they give you eggs nearly every day. These eggs are fresh, and if you have enough chickens you can actually decrease your weekly shopping bill significantly. They also provide an excellent chicken dinner when slaughtered, and the chicken is one of the easiest animals to maintain.

They also help to keep your lawns and gardens in good condition, thanks to their poop. Chicken poop is high in nutrients that are good for the soil, and the chicken droppings are perfect for keeping your lawn well fertilized and in excellent condition. Chickens love to eat bugs, and they will gobble up any bug they see roaming around your yard. They will also peck the ground to find worms and bugs, so having chickens will ensure that your lawn is forever free of bugs that can damage the grass. For this, you will want to check out portable chicken coop plans.

They are also very entertaining to watch as they cluck around your yard, as they are odd birds and fairly quirky.The way they interact with each other can keep kids entertained for hours, making them a perfect choice for families with kids.

Chris and Leslie Hardenbrook have chickens in their backyard on the Big Island of Hawai'i. Learn how to raise your own egg-laying hens and build from your own step-by-step backyard chicken coop plans, just visit their blog at www.echickencoopsandruns.com and see what the urban chicken movement is all about.