Chicken Hen House - How to go About Building a Hen House

If you've been raising hens for any reasonable period of time, you'll know the importance of a good quality hen house. If you are serious about raising and looking after any number of hens then you need a durable hen house, there can be no doubt about it. You have two options when it comes to hen houses... purchase a pre-built one from a farm store OR build your own. The latter option is one that is more appealing not only because it is the cheaper option and you can completely customise the hen house to your own needs and personality.

Before you even start building a hen house you need to consider a number of different factors like the size. Obviously the size of your hen house is going to depend on the number of hens you have or intend on having. If you have between 1 - 4 hens then an ideal size would be three to nine feet with a 10 foot high ceiling. You're also want an enclosed outside area (which is referred to as a chicken run) of about nine to twelve feet, unless you want to let your hens roam your backyard... not a good idea as you'll find dropping everywhere and predators will have easy access to your hens!

Once you've got an idea of the size of the hen house that you'd like, it's time to go about building it. I recommend picking up a good book or some other sort of guide containing all sorts of hen house designs and a step by step guides for building those designs. You can pick these up from the internet for a low price - just make sure you get a good one! Once you have one the guide should walk you through the whole process of building a hen house, from the materials needed to where the parts go-together.

Of course, you don't have to take that route, there are other options available to you. If you are quite the handyman then you will probably do just fine without the help of a guide, but the chances are you could really mess it up. And you can always join chicken hen house forums to ask for advise etc. On these discussion forums you'll even find some hen house designs being posted by fellow members, so even if you're clueless about all things hen house, then these forums can be quite a powerful resource - if you can tell the difference between good and bad advice

But what you really need apart from these forums is some good advice from someone you can trust. So for some more pointers I have learned over my years of raising hens and building chicken coops and runs, and a link to a great guide available online. For more information and help then drop by my site by clicking right here