Building a chicken coop – re-use, buy or build?

Getting the right chicken coop is essential for your chicken’s health, well being and safety. First you need to decide on the size (in order to accomodate the size of your flock). Then you need to determine the amount of laying boxes (depending on the amount of laying hens you have).

And finally, you’ll need to ensure that your coop is fully secure from predators of the night, such as dogs, wolves and ferrets who can all dig, claw and chew their way past more than most people think.When getting a chicken coop, you basically have three different options. You can either re-use, buy or build your own.

Re-using a chicken coop

There are many prebuilt structures you can consider instead of buying or building your own. An old dog house is a great example. However, you will still need to make adjustments, drill new holes, add more space and attach laying boxes in most cases.

Buying a chicken coop

Buying a chicken coop is a great option for saving a bit of time, and perfect for those who wouldn’t know a hammer from a ham sandwich. There are plenty of prebuilt chicken coops available in a variety of sizes and features to meet your needs. The biggest drawback of buying a chicken coop is that you’ll often be paying a lot of money that you really don’t need to be, where the manufacturer puts their markup on the retail price, and uses materials that are really unneccesary. Buying a coop is usually left for the urban farmer with a small flock less rural areas.

Building your own chicken coop

The majority of chicken farmers will tend to want more flexability for their chickens. This means the ability to increase or decrease the coop size, add a run or widen the indside coop floor space for the winter periods.

That’s why building your own chicken coop makes a lot more sense. Furthermore, it can be very economical and pretty straight forward with the right plans. You don’t need fancy tools or a degree in carpentry in order to build a secure, spacious and modern looking chicken coop either.

Whichever method you choose, make sure that your chicken coop is both spacious and secure. Remember that wooden floors can easily rot, so consider building on a concrete base too.

Finally, don’t forget to accomodate for laying hens adequately, with enough laying boxes and space for them to roost (and let’s not forget, produce those delicious fresh eggs every morning without fail!).

Learn more about Building Chicken Coops
on your own and why it´s the a better option instead of buying one, visit my Build a Chicken Coop Review
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Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/pets-articles/building-a-chicken-coop-reuse-buy-or-build-1567269.html

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