Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
H
OW TO
B
UILD A
C
HICKEN
C
OOP
Now that you have decided on the type of chicken that you want to raise, made sure it will
work for the goals that you are looking to accomplish, and ensured that it is ideal for your
particular location, climate, and storage areas the next thing to look at is building a chicken
coop that your chickens will call home. There are a few different contributing factors to this
including total number of chickens, the amount of space you have, and the weather in your
area. The chickens will need to have both indoor and outdoor areas in which to live. The
area's local wildlife will also be a contributing factor.
First, you must determine if your chicken coop will be portable. This is nice because it al-
lows for rotation when an area gets too scratched up, giving your yard a chance to revitalize
itself; however, it does require more land than a permanent chicken coop would. If you do
not have the room, or the desire, to rotate out where the chicken coop will be, it is important
to look into the different spaces you have available to make the best possible choice for the
coop's location; an area on top of a hill for run off is one thing to look into, so the chickens
are not stuck with areas of standing water when it rains. If your chickens will not be allowed
to roam about outside of their enclosure at all, it is a good idea to keep the coop reasonably
close as they will depend on you to bring them their food each day.
If you are in an area prone to intense heat, intense wind, or intense cold, the chicken coop
will need to have accommodations made for this such as a wind break placed around the
coop, fans or air conditioning for the chickens, or heating and insulation for the chickens,
depending on the climate in which you live.
Space is a key factor and will determine how many chickens you may have in your coop.
As with many animals, the more room they have the better, but the absolute minimum of
outdoor space per chicken that should be available is 10 square feet per chicken and the ab-
solute minimum of indoor space per chicken that should be available is 4 square feet per
chicken; each additional chicken will need that exact same amount of space added.
The indoor portion of the coop should be warm, dry, well lit, and well ventilated with con-
venient places for roosts, feeding spaces, and nest boxes. Ideally, at least two windows
should be present, and these windows should be able to be opened to provide ventilation in
the summer time.
There are hundreds of different free designs on how to make different chicken coops that are
available online; some of them quite elaborate, while others are very basic. The key determ-
ining factor in which one you choose will be the amount of chickens that you are looking to
have in your area and the amount of space that you have. The following is a sample design
that may be modified in any way you see fit in order to create a coop to suit your needs or
