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Article by Hank Dodson
What are some of the main reasons to build a chicken coop? A few of the reasons might be to keep your prize chickens from running or flying off of your property into the neighbors yard, to keep their same from predators, or give them a nice living environment. Having a coop will make it easier to gather the eggs, feed them, and clean up after them. When you have a clear reason of why you want a coop, it makes it easier to plan a better one. Building a chicken coop of your own allows for your vision of what you want to be a snap and it will flow.
Ok, lets get to it. First, make sure the location of the coop is far enough away from the house that the natural odor of the chickens will not bother your family; plan on building it close enough that you can service the chickens daily feeding and watering needs. Lets not forget the gathering of those fresh eggs you will be enjoying (thats one of those why we want chickens reasons we talked about earlier). You will also want to clean the bedding at least once a week.
Chickens are birds, and if you ever parked your car under a tree for a day or two you know that birds do create a lot of droppings. Those droppings create toxic ammonia build up that can cause your chickens to get sick, and you dont want that.
The safety of your chickens is another concern when you are building a chicken coop. Keep your egg producing chickens close enough to your house that predators will not want to take a chance of coming near. Watch dogs are an option you might want to think about. They are not a must, but they can help keeping your chickens and your eggs safe. But be careful, a watch dog can become a potential predator.
Now we want to think about the size when youre building a chicken coop. How many chickens are you planning to raise and do you plan on adding more in the future? Depending on the answer to these questions you can figure on about 2-4 square feet per chicken in your calculations and this will allow for plenty of room to let your chickens wander, exercise, and still leave enough room for your housing area. You might want think about a 5ft. high fence because this will allow you to have your housing on the upper portion of the coop and still leave enough space that can have your run on the bottom.
Now you have some of the basics of what you want to be thinking about when you are going to be building a chicken coop. You can start looking into actual plans. You can get these plans on the internet or a book store. They can make building a chicken coop very easy for the beginner and the professional.
About the Author
Hank Dodson is the owner of The Chicken Coop Plans Site. Hank has been building chicken coops and caring for chicken for decades. Want to learn more about chicken coops to build? Visit his chicken coops to build site for helpful tips and information on how to build you very own coop.