Don’t make these mistakes. It is so easy to have happy, healthy, productive backyard chickens when you provide them with some very simple things in their coop. If you are asking yourself “How do I build a chicken coop?” then start here.
Awesome! You are diving into the world of healthy, disease-free, nutrient-rich chicken eggs. This will be the easiest, most rewarding self-sufficient farming experience you can imagine. With just the basics and a few good chickens you can free yourself from depending on mass-produced, expensive, unsafe eggs and meat.
Before You Start Building:
You can invest in a pre-fab coop if you have the cash to spend. You can also easily build your own backyard coop that provides your chickens with a few essential things they need to be productive and safe. When building your chicken house you need to provide two basic things; nesting boxes and roosting bars.
Our first mistake was allowing free-standing ledges that were not intended to be roosting bars but the chickens didn’t care. They found whatever ledge they could and roosted on it all night long, leaving behind a pile of chicken droppings where we did not want them.
Of course you need boxes for nesting and laying eggs but don’t think that the chickens are going to want to sleep in those boxes just because they look so cozy. That is not in their nature. Design your roosting bars so that you can easily clean out the droppings from beneath them.
Make sure your nesting boxes are not open on top to prevent droppings from contaminating the eggs. You will be surprised at how clean the boxes will stay if you build them properly. The chickens will generally chose not to defecate in the nesting boxes.
Now for your outdoor area. Decide if you are going to let your chickens roam free during the day or if they will have to stay contained within fencing. Our next mistake was letting new chickens roam free before they knew where their nighttime home was. They roosted in the trees but we lost several to predators. Let your chickens learn where they belong at night before you let them out.
If you live in an area that gets extreme weather, either hot or cold/snowy then their outdoor yard should be partially covered to protect from the elements but still allow them to go outside the house. Most of it should be covered with something that lets the elements in but keeps predators out.
Remember to have an easily accessible area for you to refill feeders and waterers. You will be doing that a lot so you want to make it simple.
Okay, now that you know how to avoid these mistakes during building you can get started…