I first heard about people raising chickens in their own gardens back in 2004, when a friend of mine started doing it because he liked organic food and knowing that the eggs he ate came from animals that were treated and raised in a humane manner. He decided the only way to know for sure about that was if he raised the chickens himself. He did a lot of research on the different aspects of chicken coop design, and then he built two pretty decent-sized coops in his back garden, since it's pretty large. A few weeks after that we went over and my wife heard about it, and then nothing would do but that we raised some chickens of our own.
I was okay with it, I guess. We have a pretty big garden ourselves, but I couldn't see needing that many eggs so I managed to talk the missus into only one coop. Fine, she said, and then she left me to get started on the chicken coop design, going off with a big book under her arm called how to care for chickens. Well, I wasn't about to do all that research myself what with my friend already having done it, so I gave him a call and asked him to come over.
He did, and ran over the basics with me in the little shed I use as my workshop. First, he said, chickens need enough space to be comfortable, or they won't lay as many eggs as they should. I asked him how much space was enough, and he gave me these guidelines:
* Inside the coop " at least 4 square feet per bird
* Outside the coop in a run - at least 10 square feet per bird
* On roosts " 3 horizontal feet per bird.
Other than that, he said, I also needed to make sure there was enough ventilation in the chicken coop design to keep the chickens healthy. They naturally like temperatures that are neither extremely hot or cold, so adding windows into the top of the coop would allow air to circulate and keep the temperature in a range the poultry would like. With that in mind, I put in one that I could control how much it opens, since sometimes it gets cold here and a wide open one would let in drafts that the chickens would find just as uncomfortable.
He also told me about how chickens like to roost off the ground. Apparently this is because in the wild they sleep on tree branches to avoid predators, so that adding roosts into a chicken coop design that lets them do something similar will make them feel safer. I ended up choosing, at his recommendation, 2 x 2 boards with the sides rounded a bit to make it easier for my birds to grip them.
The last thing to consider was protection from some of the chickens' natural predators. Since there are so many, of so many different kinds"such as birds of prey, wild cats, and wolves or foxes"you need to consider all angles of attack when making your chicken coop design predator-proof. Make sure the walls of the coop are solid enough, and that any chicken wire you use has a small enough mesh to prevent them getting into the run.
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For more great tips and advice on chicken coop , visit ." target="_blank">http://www.chickencoopadvice.com .
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