Georgia Pet Care

In building a chicken coop, there are many things that people don’t take under consideration, and they’re sometimes things that may finish up hurting their chickens in the long term. Agree with it or not, there’s much more to making a coop than just building it and inserting your chickens, so let’s take a look at the potential dangers in your coop.

Low Ceiling

You won’t think about this, but chickens are birds, and just because they do not fly well, doesn’t imply they don’t give it their best shot. Chickens will always try to fly so if you have low ceiling it is possible for your chicken to get hurt while trying to fly. If it is weirdly low, there is a chance the chicken will manage to wreck its neck.

This essentially isn’t something you want to see when you come out to feed your chickens in the morning, so remember, if you have to duck while fundamentally walking around in your coop, the ceiling is too low, that is something to think about in your chicken coop designs.

Exposed Wires

Chickens need lighting 14 hours every day to lay properly, and for you want a heat lamp in your chicken coop designs. This does not imply you must run an extension twine across your ceiling and let it sag. When you install the heat lamp, make sure that you either wire it into the ceiling, or at least fasten the core soundly to the ceiling so that your chickens don’t start running into the hanging wire. This will also cause a difficulty for you when you’re going out and in of the coop, so make certain you do it the right way.

Poisons

you can always have some rodents rambling your coop, and while they can get exasperating, you mustn’t set out poisons, and this is for 2 reasons. One reason is that your chickens will eat the poison and you’ll find them dead the following morning. There’s one other reason, and that is even if you’re smart, and put the poison out of the reach of your loved birds, the rodent that eats the poison will not always be that far away. Your chickens will most likely attack announced rodent, and likely absorb the poison that way, ending with the same result.

Not Good Fence Design

If you don’t design your fence properly, your chickens will finish up dead one way or another. Make sure that you build the fence from chicken wire, or run some plastic chicken wire round the base of the fence so that the chickens don’t poke their head thru it and finish up getting hurt when a predator is near.

Poor Lighting

Some people forget that chickens do need light, and tend to leave the poor birds in the dark all day. This isn’t just negative to their health - it also meddles with their laying habits.

Make sure that you add in decent lighting when you’re doing your chicken coop designs, or you might meet with disastrous results. Those are a couple of the major failings in chicken coop designs, and hopefully by studying this piece, you have learned to avoid them altogether, and your chickens will live a long and productive life.

If you have a backyard chicken operation, you may not want to make a heavy investment in building a chicken coop.  Many chicken coop designs on the Internet are made by people just like you that have had success with their designs and the chickens seem productive.  If you read most of them, it seems that average construction price for moderate-sized chicken coop designs that hold 10 chickens, runs around $300.Some chicken takers have created a cheap or free chicken housing from recycled materials.

Some chicken coop designs show chicken coops made from everything you can imagine.  PVC Pipe, 55 gallon barrels, bunk bed frames, old campers and children’s playhouses are just a few of the chicken coop designs you can find to recycle items you may have laying around the house.

Some chicken coop designs involve scrap lumber, garage sale items such as shelving or leftover shingles, siding, windows and other items to build an affordable chicken coop.  (Be sure that any old nails are pulled out of scrap lumber so the chickens won’t get hurt). Most chicken coop designs involve ventilation, insulation, protection from predators, light, bedding, nesting boxes, food and water stations and roosts.  You can find different ideas from different chicken coop designs but most of them suggest 4 to 10 square feet of space per chicken.

Old doghouses, storage chests and even chest of drawers have been converted to chicken coops.  In fact, there are ingenuous chicken coop designs that stack old dressers for a chicken coop condominium complex.  Of course, you need to provide a ramp that is about 8 inches across with steps every six inches, if it is over 3 foot tall.  Most chickens like to roost around 4 feet high at night for security, but you want to make sure that you have a fenced chicken yard or run that is also enclosed on top to prevent hawks, eagles and owls from getting to the chickens and eggs.

Some of the best tips are to look at the different chicken coop designs online and get ideas, if you have scrap building supplies on hand.  If not, there are affordable chicken coop designs that are sold in kits, and you can find books that offer all of the information you need to know about the specific needs that the chicken coops need to provide.

After you have constructed your chicken coop is not the time to figure out that you left out some crucial elements.  A healthy and happy chicken will lay a lot more eggs than one that is crowded and stressed.  It is important that they are protected from neighborhood dogs, rodents and raccoons, so you need to consider predators in your area when considering chicken coop designs that use items you have on hand or when you decide to improvise.

Chicken are not so expensive to take care, with a good housing, a 50 pound chicken feeds are good to last for 3 months for ten to thirteen chickens.  You can get your own fresh, organic eggs daily, which is a cost efficient considering the price of eggs in the grocery store.  Chicken coop designs can be elaborate or simple; they don’t have to be expensive.

Chickens, while being wonderful creatures aren’t very satisfactory when you try to engage with them, so when building a coop you have to don’t forget to give them a lot of space so they can run away from folks if they so wish.

Having said that, good chicken coop designs are for the main part that could either be an old shed, or a new shed. If you want, you can even make your coop within your barn. You can buy things from the store for accessories or you can just as simply build the things by yourself, actually, your chickens aren’t going to be fussy. So to get your own chicken coop  you may need the following :

Coop : For this you can use an old shed, just make sure that you surround it with fencing so the chickens don’t ramble too far. But make no mistake ; simply because chickens can’t fly, doesn’t suggest they can not jump, so regardless of how high the fence is, your chickens are going to get out. Due to this you have to either enclose the whole thing, or keep an extremely close eye on them.

It is ideal for you to have a hole in the side, with an attached ramp, of your chicken coop so the chicken can easily come in and out of the coop. To protect them from the elements you should shield that opening with a bit of tubes the chickens can walk through. One thing that you can use for this is an old mailbox, which you can cut the end off, and fasten to the opening with screws. Best of all, you can close the door on the mailbox in winter so your chickens don’t walk outside in the snow ; these are things that you need to actually think about in your chicken coop designs.

Nesting Boxes : when you’re doing the chicken coop designs, you can naturally buy these, and some of the ones you can buy are pretty nice, but then again you are also free to build them out of wood ; it isn’t hard and you can save a massive amount of cash in doing so. Nesting boxes are where the chickens sleep, and lay their eggs, and what you’ll need to do is fill the base of these with a thick later of stray so your chicken will be comfortable. nterestingly enough, the chickens will not use the bog in these, or at least not really as much as you’d think, so that isn’t something that you have got to worry about.

Feed Trough : This would be better to buy, because troughs are made particularly for chickens, with a grille over them so that predators have a harder time eating the food, and it also daunts your chickens from doing their business in the food!

Water : guarantee the chickens have tons of water, the sole way is to get a sort of water dispenser from a pet store, and these are usually made from galvanized metal. If you use an open water tub, then the chickens will either manage to jump in it, do their business in it, or throw bedding into it.

Insulation : guarantee the coop is properly insulated, that way it is well protected in the cold season. This is something that you must plan out initially when you’re doing your chicken coop designs.

Bedding : Bedding can be bought from a number of pet stores, and even retail shops, they are fundamentally wood chips that you lay on the floor of your coop.

Lighting : Chickens need light at least fourteen hours every day to lay properly, so it is vital that you visit either your pet store, or a tractor supply store to get an honest heat lamp. If it becomes too hot in the coop, then you could need to give some thought to installing a fan too though ideally the chickens would be in a position to go outside to run away from the heat.