Building A Chicken Coop Design | Chicken Coop Ground Cover
Building A Chicken Coop Design
Once you have mapped out where you want your chicken coop to go, you will want to begin designing the actual building. Keeping chickens has become increasingly popular in the united states, which has spawned many different ideas about the best way to go about building a chicken coop.
One ideas is to keep the chickens out in the open as much as possible. The design that accomplishes this is the chicken tractor. A chicken tractor is a small (housing only 2 or 3 hens) A-frame structure with no floor that is sided with chicken wire. A small enclosure is built into one end with plywood and contains nesting boxes.
The advantage to this type of chicken coop is that it can be easily dragged from area to area to provide the chickens with new food and terrain. This also ensures that the vegetation in each area is cropped, tilled, and fertilised in a regular rotation ensuring a healthy growth. This is where the name "chicken tractor" comes from since they essentially perform the work of a tractor without the actual machine.
The downside of building a chicken coop like this is that the chickens have little or no protection from the elements, and in heavy winds the contraption must be staked down to prevent it blowing over.
Another idea for building a chicken coop is to have an actual structure with built-in ventilation like windows, and nesting shelves set along the walls. This keeps the chickens away from rough weather, and you should put a door in that opens onto a fenced run so that the chickens are not always kept inside. This type of structure is not mobile, and usually has a floor strewn with straw or other disposable material to absorb waste. You can keep as many chickens in this type of coop as you have space for.
While this structure will protect your chickens from the elements and predators better than an open air coop, it has its disadvantages as well. The chickens will not be able to find a continual renewed food source, so you must be able to feed them well. Also, a coop like this must be cleaned regularly and kept well-aired. However, if you choose to build a stationary coop, you can use it for another purpose if you ever stop raising chickens, so it will serve long-term.
There are other ready-made chicken coops available that resemble the chicken tractor and are able to be moved about, but they are usually just for one or two chickens. They are made of tent-like material and will not withstand inclement weather. However, they are very compact and tidy, and make keeping just a few chickens easy and affordable.
With whatever design you decide to go with, make sure that there is plenty of ventilation, and that you have put fencing around the whole area you intend to keep the chickens in order to keep out maurading predators as well as to discourage escaping chickens. And, as always, make certain you have plenty of fresh water on hand.
Building A Chicken Coop Design
