Monday, 15 June 2009

Forget Ready Made - Build Your Own Chicken Coop

By Charlie Finch

There are loads of chicken coops for sale - at a price. Building your own is easy if you have a good set of chicken coop plans and instructions, whether you are a new chicken keeper and want a simple hen house, or an experienced keeper who wants a more sophisticated chicken coop

Its a great family project too. Depending on the ages of your children, they will be able to help building the chicken coop by doing something: fetching and organising the materials, telling you what to do next, assembling some of the pieces or even building the entire chicken coop.

The first thing to decide is what kind of chicken coop is right for you. If you only have, or are planning to get, a few hens, say around three, then a chicken ark could be a good solution.

If you want your chickens to free range, you can let them out, but a chicken ark is designed to be moved around so the chickens get to range as you move it. The simple design includes a roosting area one end and run the other.

It will take you most of a weekend to build a larger hen house with a run, but i's still a simple task if the design is based on simple shapes. This is a good design for around five hens. if you choose to build an ark as well, you then have something to move the hens around as well as a chicken coop with a fixed run.

You could build a chicken ark as well, so you have a moveable as well as a fixed hen house.

To save costs even further, source some plans that include instructions and plans for building all three types of chicken coop. Then you're all set to really save money.

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