Fresh eggs. Low maintenance. Easy to build. Fun and entertaining pets.
If these are some of the reason you are deciding to build a small backyard chicken coop, you are probably on the right track. Chickens are very low maintenance pets, and unlike most other pets, they offer many benefits.
Raising chickens isn’t really for everyone but if you are serious about taking responsibility for raising, feeding, and cleaning up after chickens then they are probably right for you. Chickens basically need a safe home, nutritious food, and someone to clean up after them. These are pretty much the main rules to raising chickens, but if you are ready to jump in you must consider a few other essential details before purchasing a flock of chickens of our own.
Do you have enough space to build a hen house? Each chicken requires at the minimum 3 to 4 feet each. So when considering how big to build your hen house you must first consider how many hens you hope to house. Is your yard big enough? Do you have enough materials? There is no reason it needs to be an expensive project, however, you will need to consider the fact that this will be a structure on your property and however you decide to build this structure, you will have to look at it each day.
Ventilation is a definite concern. In order to raise healthy chickens that produce healthy eggs you must ventilate your coop! Toxic fumes can become a health hazard to your new found pets causing their eggs not be as healthy and organic as you were hoping for. Not to begin to mention the effects on you when you enter your coop to clean and feed your chickens.
You must also provide a light source and make your coop easy to clean. Slopping the floor is a great start, and building it above the ground or higher up in the yard will provide protection from flooding and water pooling up. You must consider your coop to be a home, now it doesn’t have to be as well designed or as architecturally solid as your own home, but this is a home to living animals that you have chosen to raise and you must consider the best logical approach to building a small backyard chicken coop.
Now, forget appearance and design for a minute and consider what would happen if you wake up one morning to go reap the benefits of your adorable new friends, only to find them all missing. What happened? Where are they? After you take a few minutes to wrap your mind around this, you realize you didn’t build your coop very secure and predators (dogs, cats, coyotes) somehow found their way into your coop and decided it was time to play or eat dinner. Not how you were envisioning this were you?
This is precisely why you must consider many different things before building your small backyard chicken coop and possibly it may be in your best interest to seek a little expert advice. At Building Chicken Coops you can get building designs, instructions and helpful advice to consider before you begin. This is valuable tool in chicken coop construction. And for more information on raising chickens please visit Building Chicken Coops for helpful advice and expert knowledge. With a little extra thought and a little bit of work, everyone CAN build a small backyard chicken coop, but just remember to be safe and smart about it.
And check out my article on Why Not Build a Chicken Coop.
More:
Check out a few interesting articles:
Building A Small Backyard Chicken Coop-Save Time and Money!
Chicken Coops in Your Backyard. Reasons not to Build One!
Chicken Coop Barn!
7 Things You Do Not Know About Building A Chicken Pen and Raising Chickens!
Chicken Coop Building Plans-Farm Fresh Eggs Everday!
