Posts Tagged ‘chicken’
If you are a chicken breeder, and you have baby chicks, you will soon realize how fast they grow as the days go by. Eventually, you will need a place to house your fast growing chicks. This is the exact time to consider creating a chicken coup for them.
Take a trip straight to your favourite hardware store and make a list of all the materials you will need to get started with your chicken coup creation. This DIY task will certainly cost you less than a hundred dollars. You will need a few pieces of wood, chicken wires, and some hinges to fasten your coup door for starters.
If you are completely clueless on how to get started, then log on to the World Wide Web for design and plans you can utilize for your chicken coup project. You will surely find a wealth of information on how you can get started with your DIY chicken coup plan. Just bear in mind your growing chicks and how soon they’ll need a place to stay and inhabit. There were a few designs online to choose from. Make sure to choose a simple design which you will least likely to mess up. And, most importantly, bear in mind that you needed a design that you could complete in a short span of time. After downloading and printing the design plans and making a list of everything I needed, I headed straight back to the store to get the materials. All I needed was some lumber and some chicken wire. I already had the nails, screws, hinges, hammers and saws I needed at home.
This task is not as daunting as it seem, you will just need to know how to use the hammer, saw and cut your wood pieces and chicken wire appropriately for them to fit your chicken coup design and technical plans. Make sure that you have the floors all sloped from the main door, well-ventilated, and can dry up easily to avoid harmful outside elements from plaguing your chicks. Just follow the DIY steps and you will definitely create a very good chicken coup that’s safe, clean, and habitable for your fast growing chicks.
Jasun Armstrong is a chicken coup expert. Head over to http://www.chickencoup.com.au for all of your chicken coop and chicken pen needs.
We do all know that there is a wealth of information on the internet about building your own backyard chicken coups. You will be able to sift through thousands of websites devoted for DIY chicken coup creation. So, get started by scouring the World Wide Web for the basic information on how to create your own chicken coup.
Most of my chickens are free ranging, so I needed to give them plenty of space to scratch outside in the fresh air for insects and bugs during the day. This means that they need an enclosed run attached to their living quarters. The chickens need somewhere to roost inside the enclosed part of the coop, which means pegs or poles raised off the ground. So, I wanted a design that incorporated a hatch for me or my kids to lift and take out the eggs easily.
So finally when we’d agree on the backyard chicken coup plans we would follow, I had to go out to the local hardware store and purchase the materials. The materials you need will depend largely on the design you will finally choose, but most materials will be the same as the one I picked – wood, chicken wire, hinges, nails and screws. This time, I was delighted with the bill from the hardware store. I purchased everything I needed for under $100.
After I have assembled all the necessary tools and materials, I read through my chicken coup plans once more, to en sure that I knew what I was doing. I started with the nesting boxes first, and gradually built up the coup piece by piece, so that by the end of the day I was putting the finishing touches to a respectable looking home made chicken coup.
After I have completed the entire project I can feel a sense of pride and fulfilment. I did not spent a fortune creating one, and I have well secured my chickens on a chicken coup designed to cater to my chicken breed’s specific needs and protection.
Keeping chickens in a chicken coop can be a fun and rewarding activity. Let Jasun Armstrong teach you how to build a chicken coop and chicken house.
If you want to get started in, or have already started raising chickens, it’s certainly an advantage to download some plans for chicken house construction. You can build a chicken house extremely cheap, and it doesn’t take particularly good handyman skills. This article helps you get the ball rolling.
Prerequisite List
It pays off to take a systematic approach to building a chicken house. Small mistakes at the beginning can mean a lot of time wasted later on. Focus on the following items before you begin:
1) Figure out how many birds you’re going to have, then add 5! Your coop should give roughly 4 square feet per chicken. Without this kind of space you can expect significantly reduced egg yields, as the birds will be too stressed out to lay.
2) Make sure that your coop is built in a position that will take advantage of any morning sunlight you might have. Chickens are very sensitive to subtle changes in light, and lay their eggs according to the time of day.
3) The flooring of the coop will be different depending on the climate you live in. There are typically 3 types of floor coverings: sawdust, straw, and sand. Sawdust is a good all-rounder, but requires a lot of cleaning. Straw drains pretty well, but can get dirty fast. Sand is similar to sawdust, but doesn’t require as much cleaning.
4) Make a list of all predators in your area. Foxes, snakes, wolfs, etc.. Many of these animals can burrow under the coop fence and eat your chickens. Make sure to build security measures into your coop, such as burying a length of mesh around the perimeter to prevent dig ins.
5) Build the coop close to a water and electricity source. You will probably need a warming light in winter, which will need power. Alternatively you could connect it to a mini solar panel which you can either buy or also build yourself.
For the best plans for chicken house construction, check out this Build A Chicken House website now.
Steve Kennett is a dedicated family man with a passion for writing. He runs the Chicken Coop Corner website.
Backyard Chicken keeping is becoming rather popular these days; that seems obvious since keeping chicken in your backyard has so many benefits to offer such as eggs, meat, keeping grass clean of weed to name a few. Plus Chickens are just so beautiful! So many people proudly display their pets on poultry shows. Keeping chicken is also an engaging and rewarding hobby.
Deciding on what kind of a coop to make for your self
Essentially there are 3 kinds of chicken or hen houses that you can make for yourself. A Chicken ark which is typically meant for 5-6 chicken; a medium sized chicken coop for about 8 or 10 chicken; and finally a large sized or premium chicken coop for anywhere between 10 to 15 chicken.
Another consideration that you must make take into account is how much space that you have to offer. If your back yard is not big enough to accommodate a big – sized coop, then you might want to go in for a smaller one.
Finally you will want to weigh your pockets before you can decide your investments. A good premium sized coop will cost at least $200. However if you decide to build a smaller one then the investment will be minimal.
Materials needed:
This will depend on the kind of construction you will want to make. Going by your requirements you can go in for a Chicken Ark (the smallest), a medium sized coop, or a large sized one with a chicken run. Generally speaking all you should require, some lumber, plywood, chicken wire, nails, hammer, straw, poultry feeders, and yes a measuring tape.
Making a coop can be a fun thing to do. Apart from making a home for your birds, you get to engage yourself in something which is constructive and definitely worthwhile. Building a coop is not only fun it is also lighter on your pockets. Readymade coops can be really expensive often costing more than 500 dollars per piece. Even when you do buy a readymade coop you still have to assemble the whole thing anyways.
Did you like this article? Are you interested in knowing more about how to keep and raise chicken? Visit my page where I have discussed in great detail how you can make a good cheap chicken coop and also a few important things you should know about keeping and raising chicken.
