Chicken Coop Designs and Plans

If you want to give more security and maintain the health and hygiene of your chicken, plan and construct a chicken coop for them. A chicken coop will discipline your chicken, from loitering unnecessarily in the home or backyard areas and spoil any herbs or shrubs planted in there. Also, if your chicken are moving unattended outside your house premises, they may disturb your neighbors and bitter your relationship with them. Besides these reasons, securing your chicken from uninvited guests like cats is also a major issue. So, if you have planned to make a chicken coop, then do it at the earliest. You can productively utilize your weekends by constructing a home for your chicken. There are simple chicken coop plans and designs, that can help you build a home for your chicken. The homemade chicken coop plans offer you a flexibility in working with materials, that you can obtain in your house or at a nearby local store. You just need to peep and check in your locked store rooms, terrace areas and the backyard areas for them. Some hard work is surely expected!

Chicken Coop Designs
Learning how to make a chicken coop is not as abstruse as it is thought to be. The fact is that you need not to be an architect or an expert carpenter, while designing the chicken coops. All you need is to consider a few facts, that are necessary for the chicken coop designs. First of all, the size of the chicken coop must be in accordance with the number of chicken that will stay in it. As a general rule, try to give some margin in the size of the chicken coop so that adjustments can be done if required. Next, design of the chicken coop. This must be done by keeping in mind the chicken breed you are choosing. Triangular shapes, often like the typical shape of hut house, is a popular form of chicken and hen house design.

Materials Required In Chicken Coop Designs
The essential materials that you may need in building chicken coop designs, are some old building materials, rectangular boards of wood (that are still unused from the house construction), PVC pipes, nails, roofing materials (shingles) and broken pieces of wooden logs. You will also require some 50 gallon barrels. You need to look into the quality of the wood, as it may have to face weather changes and can be infested by termites and insects during the rainy season. If you wish, you can place some wired gates at the entrance that can be locked once the chicken are inside. This will make sure that the chicken are safe at night, when they are not attended by anyone.

Chicken Coop Plans
First of all, consider the dimensions of the chicken coop, for which you must have made a rough layout. Whatever designs you are choosing, ensure that at least 3 to 4 square feet area is available per chicken, on the floor of the chicken coop. If you have 4 square feet per chicken, then use the space and don't hesitate to flaunt it. Generally, if there are 10 chickens, then the size of the chicken coop must be around 40 square feet. The area required in outdoor spaces, is many times larger than that is required in the chicken coops. Also, consider the height element while giving a thought to chicken coop plans. The height of the coop must be sufficient enough to make the chicken feel comfortable. If the chicken coop just touches the head of the chicken, they will hardly settle in with ease.

You can also consider backyard chicken coop plans, that are popular in the rural areas. The backyard chicken coop is generally surrounded by fences and is in the typical form of a yard. The chicken are allowed to roam freely in their fences. The open structure provides proper ventilation to the chicken. Another chicken coop plan is the idea of portable chicken coop designs. These portable chicken coop designs are also known as chicken tractors and they can be moved form one place to another. This is very beneficial for people who are raising chickens in urban areas and there is a scarcity of space. Also, while cleaning the portable chicken coop, you can take it outside or to your backyard, clean it there and then bring it back to its normal position.

Chicken also hate poor light conditions and damp surfaces. If you are providing them with a home, then make sure there is proper hygiene in it. Regularly remove the chicken droppings. Use it as a fertilizer in your garden. Provide chicken feeders in the chicken coops, so that they can never fall short of nutrients and keep water in a separate container, so that the chicken can use it whenever required.