Chicken House Building Plans

A chicken house or a chicken coop is a structure used to keep various chicken breeds, wherein they are provided with nest boxes to lay eggs and perches to rest on. Coops meant for breeding meat birds are different as they don't have these features of a chicken coop. Though you can make a chicken house from a wide range of materials, ranging from PVC pipes to ready-made chicken coop kits, wood is considered to be the best material.

Building Plans for Chicken Houses

The basic requirement of a chicken coop is to provide shelter to these birds, therefore, you need to work out the number of birds to determine the area of the shelter. Ideally recommended space is approximately 3 to 4 sq ft per chicken, which adds up to 40 sq ft for 10 chickens. The chickens also require some common outdoor space. An area of 32 sq ft per chicken is recommended for outer space, which makes it approximately 70 sq ft area for 10 chickens. It's important that the chicken house plan you choose, provides a good amount of free space to your birds, as keeping them in a cramped condition will only give you less number of eggs.

Being easily available and relatively inexpensive, a wooden box type chicken house is the first choice for many households. Its size largely depends on how many birds you plan to house in it. Considering you plan to house 10 chickens, your chicken house can be 6 feet in height and 8 feet in width. As we said earlier, these birds should get ample internal as well as external space to move around. Proper ventilation is another necessity. Chickens require properly ventilated space, therefore, you can create some windows in the coop for proper air ventilation. Access to water is another prominent aspect of a chicken house; you can keep water either inside the coop or outside in the open space. As long as they get ample food and water, the place doesn't matter.

Nest Boxes and Perches

An ideal chicken nest box is approximately 15 inches in length and 15 inches in breadth. Fill these boxes with straw or wood chips to provide a soft padding so that the eggs don't crack. Although it's good to have a single nest box per chicken, lesser number of boxes won't make a big difference. A 2 x 4 slightly rounded board of wood is an ideal perch for the birds to roost. Ensure that it's long enough to accommodate the number of birds you shelter. You can either fit it straight across the two walls of the chicken house, or fix it diagonally across two corners. Spread some straw or wooden chips below the perch, and if possible all over the coop. By doing this, the tedious task of cleaning the floor will become easier as you just have to change the straw or wooden chips every day.

A clean and healthy chicken house will ensure healthy birds, and healthy birds will ensure you get good amount of eggs from them. Therefore it is necessary to choose the plan which facilitates your requirements and keep your birds healthy. It may seem to be a tough task, but in fact, it is quite easy; you just need to be ready with the blueprint before building a chicken house.