You’ve got your chickens – either you bought a couple of decent birds from the local hatchery, or you hatched a couple of chicks from your own incubator.
Everything’s nice and dandy, and all you have to worry about now is where you’ll be housing these birds. Unless you’ve got a sprawling ranch with acres and acres of land, building your chickens a chicken coop is going to be where you’ll be keeping your birds.
Chicken coop is the easiest form of housing you can get – or build – for your chickens. Think of them as the dormitory for your animals.
This is where your chickens will nest, eat, and sleep. This is also where they will lay their eggs, brood (if you give them the chance to), and pretty much everything else a chicken does.
Since this is going to be their home, you want to make sure that your chickens will be very comfortable and safe inside their own homes.
Before you start building / buy a chicken coop, however, you should consider a couple of items first.
1. How many chickens will you be getting?
This is really a no-brainer. If you’re getting less than ten, or if you’re planning on keeping your chicken headcount to a minimum, a small chicken coop is in order.
But if you plan on making money out of your chicken coop, house at least twenty hens in a moderately-sized coop with the works. If you’re not sure of your maximum chicken count, get a big coop. It’s better to be safe than stuffing your chickens in a small housing unit.
How big is your backyard?
Of course, you’ll have to take into account how big your backyard is.
If you live with your family, I’m sure they wouldn’t like it if you took over the entire backyard with your startup hatchery.
Take into account how big an area of the backyard you’ll be allotting for the chicken coop and the chicken run. This means that trying to get a rough idea of how many chickens you’ll be rearing.
What type of Area Predators Are Around?
Do you live in the middle of the city?
Or are you from the suburbs?
Find out what possible chicken predators can be found in the area you live in. The most common predators are coyotes, foxes, raccoons and fisher cats.
Other pests can also pose a threat to your chicken coop. House the coop in a secure area that offers decent protection from outside forces: put up a fence or a wall around the coop, or wrap chicken wire around the perimeter to keep unwanted elements out.
If you’re building the chicken coop on your own, a faster way of getting the structure up is to build the coop and the nest boxes at the same time.
Just don’t eat up the living space inside the coop with the nest boxes – remember, you’ll need to set up watering and feeding troughs for your chickens, and these take up space as well. Place the coop in an area that gets enough sunlight, especially if you live in an area that gets exceptionally cold.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: all it takes to build a decent and efficient chicken coop is proper planning.
Build a coop that keeps your chickens comfortable and safe, and you will have made sure that your chicken coop houses birds that are happy to be raised by you.
