People rear chickens in the backyard of their homes for variety of reasons. Besides taking us closer to nature, maintaining a chicken farm at home gives us as much sense of achievement as growing vegetables in the garden. It is also entertaining to watch chickens moving around in the garden. It will give a lot of satisfaction and happiness, if one visualizes that it is chickens that give fresh eggs for breakfast all through the year.

However, in order to ensure sound health for chickens and optimize production of eggs, certain conditions such as quality of poultry feed and weight of the hens need to be fulfilled. In addition, the output of eggs also depends considerably on the duration of sunlight that is available daily. Chickens will, normally, start laying eggs anytime from twentieth to twenty-first weeks and keep on laying eggs for a little more than a year.

The quantity of eggs and their sizes will be optimum during this period. One can ensure the health of egg-laying hens and the number of eggs that they lay by providing requisite quantum of light. Sunshine speeds up the production of eggs. In other words, as the daytime increases so also the yield of eggs.

This explains why there is a natural rise in production of eggs between December 21 and June 21 and thereafter, shows a gradual decline from June21 till December 21, when production of eggs picks up again.

In order to ensure that hens get enough light even during the months when there is less sunshine, it is necessary to provide electrical connection to the ‘coop house’ that one constructs for the chickens. This way, there will not be any dearth for eggs anytime during the year.

One can switch on the light in the coop house as the daylight wears out, thereby ensuring that the light is provided to chickens ranging from 16 to 17 hours daily. It is ideal to adopt this method progressively, compensating for the fading natural sunlight during reduced daytime. This method may boost up the production of eggs by 20 to 30 percent as compared to the production when additional lighting is not provided in the coop house.

The general principle is not to provide bright light on growing birds and not reduce light on adult egg-laying hens. Some of the tips on a good lighting arrangement include:

1. Provision of lighting for appropriate duration daily;

2.ensuring minimum intensity of light; and

3. usage of recommended color.

For best results, the egg-laying hens should have adequate light ranging from 16 to 17 hours every day. The lighting should be sufficiently bright so that it is possible to see clearly the level of feeds while standing over the feeder. The ideal color of light is either yellow or orange tint. These shades can be easily obtained if incandescent bulbs are used.

Another option is to use either ‘warm-white’ fluorescent tube light or a halogen light that emits a yellowish tinge of light. A well planned chicken coop house will make it simpler to create a favorable atmosphere for hens to be comfortable and healthy. Lighting is one of the most important factors to get eggs from the hens regularly.

Another critical factor is to ensure good health for chickens. A properly designed coop house will safeguard hens from numerous hazards such as ‘predation’, theft, direct sunlight, rain, wind, heat, cold, extreme dust and abrupt changes in temperature.

In order to derive maximum pleasure, the inside of the chicken coop house should be planned in such a way that feeding and looking after chickens are simple and secured. A well planned and easy to maintain chicken coop house will give immense satisfaction of maintaining chickens in the backyard of the house.

People who raise chickens know that one of the most important things about raising chickens is the design of the chicken coops. Building a chicken house should not be done without taking the design of the chicken coops into account. It is important for numerous reasons.

First, in order for a chicken to grow properly, its home needs to meet certain standards. Building a chicken coop that is only favorable to the chicken owner will be less successful than one that is favorable to both the chicken and the owner. There are many factors that can affect not only a chicken’s growth rate, but also the chicken’s ability to lay eggs.

One example of a condition that will negatively affect both factors is a coop that is not dry. If a hen is wet it will not only be unhappy, but it will be stressed, and lay less eggs. One way to avoid a wet coop is to make sure that your chicken house includes windows.

Along with reducing the moisture in the coop, windows also provide good ventilation for the chickens. Screens should be installed on the windows of the chicken house to ensure that the chickens do not get out. There should also be a type of screen on your coops to prevent rodents or wild birds from harming your chickens. A good material to use would be wire netting or mesh.

Other important factors are ensuring that the coop is noise free, safe, and away from distractions. When designing your chicken coops, one thing to keep in mind is the amount of time you will be able to spend making sure that the chicken always has access to fresh water.

If this seems to be an issue, a design that may be more logical is one that includes an automatic watering system. If that isn’t an option, ensure that your design has enough space to accommodate water feeders that can hold gallons of water at a time.

Another thing to keep in mind is the affect of light on your hens. Light encourages hens to lay more eggs, so having an additional source of light through an electric source will be more effective than daylight alone. Another factor to take into consideration is the method you will use to feed your chickens.

If you don’t have the time to constantly make sure your chickens have an access to fresh water, and have decided to use an automated watering system in your design, it also might be a good idea to use an automatic feed dispenser. This is important because since chickens have extremely quick metabolisms they must be well fed. When chickens feel hunger they also feel weak, which could cause them to catch a disease.

Chicken houses and coops must be able to withstand changes in weather. It is important that a chicken house can provide both shade for the chickens during the summertime, as well as windbreaks in case of a strong wind. The house should also be large enough for you to enter that way you can walk around the inside of the chicken house with ease, and thus take better care of the chickens.

Designing a chicken coop is much more than something that is aesthetically pleasing, and all of these factors should be taken into consideration before building.

DIY Chicken Coop Building Guide

If you are looking for a DIY chicken coop building guide, make sure to check out the Building A Chicken Coop ebook by Bill Keene.

Keene has been a chicken farmer for a few decades and he knows the ins and outs of raising chicken. Click on the link below to visit his web site right now.

==> Click here to visit Bill Keene’s web site!

Hens can be grown at your house easily, but maintaining them includes so many factors to consider as they are vulnerable to diseases more often. There are some things which will help to keep them healthy and looking good.

Even the house design needs to be taken care which is at utmost importance in maintaining them. Several factors need to be considered in your hen house design in order to keep them safe and healthy. There is a predefined design in building a hen house even though there are several designs you can choose from.

Two schools of thought have succeeded in giving different views of their own. In those, the first school explains that, the chicken coop should have more ventilation but that makes hens feel sick due to extreme weather conditions. On the flip side, another school explains that hens do not like poor ventilation. So which one should you follow?

Nonetheless, each school has its own predefined design and their explanation as follows. For backyard chicken coop, this was mostly observed in rural areas and it consists of small chicken den which is mobile and large fencing surrounded. Hens can roam freely in this type of design.

This type of coop allows hens to hunt insects on the ground which which will feed them and keep them healthy. It also provides good ventilation to the hens and it can be constructed easily.

Nesting boxes on the other hand is very a very simple design and you can find it in any hardware store. This design consists of a hinged roof and making it very easy to collect eggs on a daily basis and also for cleaning purposes.

When you want to clean it, you simply open the roof and take the boxes out and then hose them down with water. It helps you to maintain a hygienic condition for the hens.

The factors you have to consider when building a hen house are as follow:
1) Build material – Always go for good quality materials when constructing the hen house. Use a strong mesh for windows to avoid rodents and predators from breaking it. Use concrete flooring when possible because it is easier to clean.

2) Ventilation – By having good air circulation, it helps in maintaining better health for your poultry as hens cannot tolerate wet and damp conditions. Ensure that hen den is airy enough to have free ventilation for them.

3) Lighting – Try to have more lighting for your hen house. Electric lights is the best option because it will make the hen feel comfortable at night and during winter times.

4) Hygiene – This is the most important factor in preparing a house for your hens. An ideal hen house should be very easy to clean and maintain. A clean and healthy environment for your hens will help them to lay more eggs.

DIY Hen House Building Guide

Do you want to know how to build a hen house for your back yard?

If you do, check out the Building A Chicken Coop manual by Bill Keene. Bill is an seasoned chicken farmer with more than 20 years experience.

His guide was written to teach you how to build a small, medium and also large chicken coop on a shoestring budget. For more information, click on the link below and see what Bill has to offer.

==> Click here to visit Building A Chicken Coop now!

There are some people that raise chicken in their backyard but the hens refuse to lay any eggs. Chicken that do not produce eggs most probably is due to poor housing facilities.

It does not take a lot to satisfy a bunch of hens. But the housing does need to be adequately sized, has good amount of ventilation and protect the birds from the weather.

It is not surprising to find some backyard chicken coops which are too small, inadequate ventilation while some are too open all together. If the walls of the chicken housing have cracks all over, it will permit strong draft to blow on the fowls.

Sometimes, it is not enough to improve on the existing chicken coop, you may need to build a new chicken house.

Choosing the right location

The first thing you may want to consider when building a new chicken house is choosing the perfect location for the coop. Ideally, the chicken house should be located on southern or eastern slope, near an orchard or wood lot so that the birds have plenty of shades.

A coop built on a southern or eastern slope allows snow to thaw more readily and the ground will dry up and warms much quicker.

Size of the chicken house

Choosing the size of the chicken coop depends large on the breed of the fowl and the amount of protection needed. As a rule of thumb, allow from three to five square feet of floor space for each hen.

If you have chicken which are heavy breed, you may need to allocate a larger space for them. Crowding of the birds may not yield good results. The hens may be unable to lay any eggs due to crowding stress.

Ventilation for the chicken coop

Actually, there is no best method to provided ventilation in a DIY chicken coop. Some people may choose using a simple curtain front while others will use an open front.

Open fronts does provide excellent ventilation but many people will go for the curtain front because it can be placed over most of the opening during bad weather.

Here’s a tip you can use when deciding on the right ventilation for a coop. It has been found that a chicken house closed on 3 sides and curtained tightly on the south do not provide enough fresh air for the birds occupying it.

Hence it is best to have a narrow opening along the south side of the house just under the rafters. This feature will allow greater circulation of air than the curtained openings alone.

DIY Chicken Coop

Looking for a good step by step chicken coop plans? If you are, check out Bill Keene’s Building a Chicken Coop guide. It has all the information you’ll need to build the perfect chicken coop with ample space and good ventilation. For more information, click on the link below.

==> Click here to visit Building a Chicken Coop now!

Here’s a website that most people would not know unless you are a woodworking enthusiast. It is John Metz’s Woodworking4Home site.

John Metz is a professional woodworker from Wisconsin and he has put together one of the largest collection of woodworking project plans and blueprints on the web. The members’ area has a whopping 14,000 plus project plans!

The last couple of days, I was trying to look for good chicken house building plan on the internet. By chance, I stumble upon the Woodworking4Home site.

I browse through the project categories and was quite pleased there is a section on DIY chicken house plans. I bought the pack and immediately downloaded the chicken coop plans.

Woodworking4Home Chicken Coop Plan Review

The plan that I downloaded is actually in pdf format. When I opened the file, there’s a diagram of the completed chicken house. The title written there “small chicken house”, but it looks kind of big to me.

The chicken house design is actually 8 x 8 feet and you can have 15 – 20 hens living in it. The blueprint then proceeds to explain the main function of the coop, which is to provide protection for the birds from the element, predators, injury and theft. I could not agree more.

The coop design has everything the chicken living in it would need such as ample space, perches, nests, feeder and waterer, light source and ventilation.

At the bottom of the plan, there is a diagram showing the cut away view of the chicken house with all the measurements and dimensions for the wood members.

All in all, the chicken house building plan from Woodworking4Home seems decent. However, if you really want to make the coop on your own, you need to have some woodworking and carpentry experience. Nonetheless, it gives you an idea on what’s involved in making your own DIY chicken coop for your backyard.

==> Click here to visit Woodworking4Home now!

Have you thought of raising your own chicken at home? Many people would not have dream of it. Why raise your own chicken when you can buy poultry from the supermarket.

There are a lot of benefits from raising your own chicken. The birds are very colorful and can be pretty moving ornaments for your backyard.

Chickens can also give you something the household pets cannot…fresh organic eggs!

Due to the small sizes of the bantams, chickens are preyed on by urban predators such as cats, dogs, hawks, large rats, raccoons etc. To keep them safe, the best option is to build a chicken coop for them to live in.

For those looking for chicken coop, there are 2 options. You can either buy one from a hardware store or build it via Do It Yourself (DIY) approach. Obviously the DIY route is a cheaper and better option.

Building Your Own Homemade Chicken Coop

Before you begin the construction project, you will need a set of plans and guide. This is where Mary Nelson can assist you.

Mary is the co-author of DIY chicken housing building plans found on www.chickendiyguides.com. The manual was written together with Jim Stanley, a poultry farmer with over 25 years of experience.

So what can you get from Mary’s chicken DIY guide? In short, inside the manual, you’ll get:

1) Easy step by step building instruction plan for small, medium and large coops.

2) Ideas on how to find inexpensive building material.

3) Instruction and how and where to place the chicken coop.

4) Tips on raising chicken that lay fresh and delicious eggs.

5) Special reports on city ordinances and other rules for raising chicken at home.

6) And many more.

Bonuses

If you like bonuses, you’ll love what Mary has prepared for you. When you purchase the guide, you will also receive a series of high definition (HD) videos on the ins and outs of keeping healthy chicken.

You will learn information such as hen nesting, chicken feeds, automatic watering system, eggs collection, care for chicks etc. There are also 4 special reports on chicken breeding and brooding chicks.

Product Guarantees

As an added benefit, the manual from Mary comes with a 60 days money back guarantee. If for whatever reason you do not see any value in the guide, you can ask for a full refund 60 days from the purchase date.

This is great because it literally removes all of your risk!

How much does the manual cost?

Well, the coop building plans, instructional guides plus all the video bonuses, free reports, and the money back guarantee, the report is offered for a onetime payment of only $39.97.

Everything is in digital format meaning you can download them onto your computer instantly.

For more information about Mary Nelson’s chicken DIY guide, click on the link below.

==> Click here to visit Mary Nelson’s web site!

Here are 5 important elements of the best chicken coop kits:

1) Flooring Possibilities

The least expensive type of flooring material for your chicken coop plan is plain old dirt. While economical, however, it will not protect your chickens from rodents or insulate your coop during the winter months.

Most beginner chicken hobbyists will choose a wooden floor, which is better than dirt but not waterproof. They are also not rodent-proof and tend to rot over time.

The perfect solution, and most expensive, is concrete. Easy to clean, sanitary and a great protection against rodents, a concrete floor is the best selection.

2) Insulating for Warmth and Cooling

No form of insulation makes for a cold drafty winter and a hot smoldering summer. The best insulating material is 1.5 inch of Styrofoam. The Styrofoam sheets provide the perfect form of insulation when used in the ceiling and walls.

A roofing material of aluminum that is painted white will also help in the hot summer months in reflecting heat away from the coop. You can also place bales of hay along this exterior side can cut a northerly wind in the winter back. The hay can also be used as litter.

Another option is to plant tall vegetation around the outside of the coop area. Not only will it make the area more attractive but will give relief of heat during the summer months.

3) The Importance of Ventilation

You want your chickens to be warm with a well-insulated coop but fumes can easily build up to a toxic level if there is no type of ventilation. Your chicken coop needs some vents.

Placing vents on the south or east walls of your chicken coop can help create airflow while protecting your chickens from a cold draft.

Another option is to drill large holes on the north and south sides where the roof meets the walls. Cover with mesh screens to keep outside birds from coming in to roost.

4) Building a Cozy Chicken Nest

Your chickens will become accustomed to their new nests when presented as a safe haven for their nesting. Build your nests approximately twelve by fifteen inches long and thirteen inches deep.

Use a soft type of nesting material for the floor, like litter, to keep the eggs from rolling around and cracking. Start by placing the nests on the floor in a dark area away from activity to let your chickens get used to them.

Gradually, maybe two weeks later, raise the chicken nests eighteen inches up from floor level. If your chickens are really shy, place a burlap flap over the opening.

5) Food and water dispenser

This is no time to find out if only the strong will survive. Don’t skimp on feeders and waterers.

Make sure that all of the chickens are adequately fed and watered and not having to fight over space. They will all get used to their designated areas without having to fight over their nourishment.

Present your new flock with all of the amenities that you would any other pet and they will produce and bring your lots of pleasure in years ahead.

I hope the 5 tips above is useful when you are shopping for the best chicken coop kit.

When it comes to chicken coops, there are many different plans you can make. After all, you wouldn’t believe the complexity that goes into the designing of one of these feathery houses.

You can of course go to a local store and purchase a pre-made chicken coop, and this would be perfectly acceptable. But then you would miss all the fun of designing your own coop, and naturally, there are needs your chickens need met, that you might not be able to meet with the mass produced models.

For instance, what happens if you have an injured chicken?

You may need to separate that chicken from the others to make sure that it does not sustain an injury from the other, stronger chickens.

You probably will not have this type of accommodation in a factory chicken coop. For this reason, you will find that DIY chicken coop plans are the way to go.

Simple Chicken Coop

The best part about using a homemade chicken coop plan is that you can improve upon it at will.

For instance, you might need an outside door that leads to the chicken roosts so that you can collect the eggs. It would be very hard to add this into a factory built coop, but when you are using a DIY coop, you can build it in as you go.

Keeping Your Chicken Safe

There are many other things you can do to make your DIY chicken coop project a success. Most importantly however, you can add things into your coop to make it a little safer.

Let’s face it, the standard chicken coops may not be built…shall we say…intelligently.

If you have ever owned chickens before then you know they have a habit of jumping. The problem with this is that chickens have very long necks, and if you have a low ceiling then the chicken has a chance of breaking its neck.

When you make your DIY chicken coop with a proper plan, you can make the ceiling as high as you want it to be within reason.

You will also want to make sure that you stay away from coops that have rafters, because these also cause major issues for chickens.

At some point, you’ll need to clean the coop, therefore you will want to make sure you can actually get in and out easily. A good DIY plan will allow you to get in and out very easily, meaning that scooping out the waste and bedding will be a cinch.

Homemade Chicken Coop Plan

So where do you find a good DIY chicken housing plan?

You can search online for hundreds of great plans. Some are free while the better construction plans will cost some money. The investment is very small though.

You wouldn’t believe the homemade items you can use to fill out your chicken coop. From pop bottles to pie pans, the options are nearly limitless.

With a DIY bantam coop plan, you’ll be able to outfit your entire coop without breaking the bank.

So go to your favorite search engine and look for “DIY Chicken Coops”, or variations on those words and you’re going to find some rather amazing things.

You can either follow the instructions to the letter, or you can make your own improvements. It’s up to you, and the ceiling is the limit!

If you are looking for easy to follow and inexpensive chicken coop plan, check out Building a Chicken Coop plans by Bill Keene.

Bill is a chicken farmer with more than 15 years of experience. His chicken coop blueprint will show you step-by-step how to build a chicken housing with relatively low budget.

==> Click here to read more on Building a Chicken Coop!

1) Automatic waterer.

Just like any pets, chicken needs lots of water. This is particularly important during hot summer months.

A coop hen house design should have automatic waterer. Use a watering system that waste less water, take up little space in the coop and doesn’t fill up with dirt, feathers, shavings, leave etc easily.

2) Good lighting.

Putting lighting in a chicken house is a special trick that poultry farmers use.

The light will encourage the hen to lay eggs and brood chicks all year round. Make sure you have proper supply of electricity into the chicken coop.

3) Automate the chicken feeder.

Use an automatic chicken feeder. Sometimes we tend to forget to feed the chicken. Or it might be too troublesome to constantly filling the feeder container.

The best option is to use a feeder with a large container that will dispense the chicken feeds automatically.

4) Have wire fencing.

If you want to have lots of organic eggs and chicks, make sure the chicken coop is fenced up.

Due to their small size, chicks are very susceptible to urban predators such as cats, dogs, large rats, raccoons etc.

Consider their safety and use a fence around the chicken housing when you are making the design.

5) Protection from the environment.

A good chick coop design should protect the brooding hen from the environment.

The hen should be kept away from extreme cold or heat.

Make sure the coop is well ventilated in the summer and a heating source during cold winter period.

6) Food reserve.

If you do not want to use an automatic feed dispenser, you can feed the chicken manually instead.

When you are designing the coop, make sure the food storage is relatively near.

A simple solution is to use a bin or a metal trash can with a lid placed near the chicken housing.

7) Bedding.

To encourage the hen to brood, provide them clean and dry bedding. Fresh dried straw or wood chippings in a chicken nesting box will do just fine.

8) Easy excess to tools.

When you are designing the hen house, allocate some space to keep some tools.

You’ll need space to keep a rake or broom nearby to clean the inside of the hen house.

Easy Chicken Coop Design Plans

Are you looking for an easy to building chicken coop design blueprint? If you are, check out the Building a Chicken Coop guide by Bill Keene.

Bill is an seasoned chicken farmer with more than 15 years experience. His manual will show you step-by-step how to build a functional chicken house.

==> Click here to read more about Building a Chicken Coop now!

Related web pages:
1) Homemade Mobile Chicken Coop Video

2) Storey’s Guide to Raising Chickens: Care / Feeding / Facilities (Paperback) – Click here

Can you find the plans on the web?

By the time you finish reading this blog post, you will know where to get the chicken coop plans.

Chicken Coop Design Blueprint

Now, why do we need a plan for our homemade chicken ark?

It is easy to build a chicken house, you can start by hammering pieces of wood panels together.

However, without a proper plan, how would you know where to start and where to finish? Unless you are a great carpenter that can work by using your years of woodworking experience, building a chicken coop without a plan is not a smart way to go.

You will encounter many challenges that will end up costing you time and money. It is much easier to use a chicken coop blueprint.

So where can you find free chicken coop blueprints? Easy, just do a query in the search engine. Type in phrases such “free chicken coop blueprints” or “free chicken coop plans”. You will get a good list of results.

However, when something is free on the web, usually there is a catch.

Some of the plans may not be very useful. You will have to spend large amount of time going though hundreds of useless documents just to find the one that you are looking for.

The blueprints may also use hard-to-find material and are often incomprehensible. Nonetheless, if you were to spend some time reading the information, you may come up with some good ideas for your DIY chicken coop.

A better alternative is to spend couple of bucks to get a good quality chicken coop plan. The investment is not really big anyway. By doing so, it will save you hundreds of dollar on ready made chicken shed from the store.

If you are looking for a simple and easy to follow chicken coop construction blueprint, check out the Building A Chicken Coop manual. The guide will show you step-by-step with instructional diagram how to make your own chicken housing with inexpensive building material.

To know more, read the comprehensive Building A Chicken Coop review on this web site.

==> Click here to read more about Building A Chicken Coop now!

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