This is part 1 of my eggciting (sorry) 7 part plans for chicken coop course. If you got to this page by accident, please sign up for the full course using the simple form on the right.
As promised, here’s Part 1 of your Chicken Coop Course… Along with being informative, I hope we’ll have a little fun together too.
So Let’s Start With What You’re Going To Put Them Lovely Chickens In!
Hi [name],
So you’ve come to Best Plans for Chicken Coops.com – I guess you’re going to be looking for some plans!
We’ll get to that in a minute, but there’s some important stuff to decide before that. Important in getting the right plans and not building something that will just waste you a lot of money. For most folks the idea is to get some fresh eggs and save a few bucks – so you don’t want to be making expensive mistakes with the hen house you put together.
So let’s think about what kind of chicken coop is going to be best for you.
Size
There’s small, medium, and large plans for chicken coops, each of which accommodates a certain number of chickens. There’s fixed ones and there’s portable ones. Some are on two levels, some are on one. Some are called chicken arks, some are called chicken tractors… confused yet? I was when I started looking, that’s for sure – although the plans I eventually chose had lots of flexibility so I could really build pretty much what I wanted.
Actually, before I go any further I suppose I should say a thing or two about the building process. Some people worry that they’re not going to be able to turn their chicken plans into reality. The plans will be too complicated or they don’t have the skills. Let me say I’ve never met anybody who couldn’t build a decent chicken coop. Yea, maybe they made a few mistakes along the way, maybe it didn’t finish up looking quite like the one in the picture, but so long as you keep your ladies healthy and safe – and you get eggs – who really cares! If you’re fussy and coop number one isn’t all it might be, build coop number 2!
Sorry – getting sidetracked. Back to choosing your coop.
The biggest mistake you can make is trying to cram too many chickens in. Each chicken requires a certain area to feel comfortable, stay healthy and lay eggs properly. Cramped coops breed diseases. I’m not going to give you square footage or chickens per yard or anything because that depends on the style of plan you choose. Just bear it in mind when you’re looking.
How many chickens you actually need could be looked at as how many eggs you want. Chickens don’t always lay eggs all year round – or even every day. It depends on the breed. The US Department of Agriculture says a chicken lays, on average, about 260 eggs a year. If there’s just you and your partner then a couple or three hens is pretty much going to have you covered. You might even have some to give the neighbors once a week. Depending on your local regulations you could keep three chickens in more or less any backyard.
Some people (me included) get a bit more involved. Three chickens becomes half a dozen, then along comes another breed with a different coop… If you’ve got the space you can easily get carried away and be supplying half the town with eggs. I’m kidding – kind of – selling your surplus isn’t likely to make you rich but it’ll certainly help with feed costs.
Did I get sidetracked again?
Bottom line? It’s always better to error on the size of being too big than being too small, then you can always add more birds to the chicken coop if you want to later on.
Portable Versus Fixed
A portable chicken coops give you the advantage of being able to move it around – yea, right. Pretty obvious that, but why would you want to? Well chickens scratch and peck at the ground, eating bugs, weeds and grass. Eventually they’ll strip an area bare. That’s not a problem for the chickens – they like dirt – but if you want to keep the wear and tear even, a portable chicken coop will help. There’s a limit to size of course, a portable coop for three dozen hens is going to take some moving!
On the other hand, a fixed coop is usually more rigid so it will take wear and tear, and can be less prone to attack by predators (depending on what wild animals you have where you live).
If you keep very decorative breeds, you might want to move them around so they look their best in your garden.
Some say a mobile coop is easier to clean – but then that depends how big you build a fixed one. If you can stand up in a fixed one, some work is going to be easier than fiddling about in corners of a portable one.
Lots to think about, isn’t there. Take your time with this stage because mistakes are invariably expensive to put right.
Appearance
Finally, you’ll want to think about overall appearance. Some people have been amazingly creative and clever with their chicken coop designs. They make them look like small versions of big barns, they use half an old sedan or build coops in the style of mansion houses – almost everything you can think of.
Which is great, as long as they’re also good at keeping the chickens happy! Weird and wacky is fine, as long as they also work properly. If you want to go that route, but you’ve never built one before, get some good plans and do a basic structure. Learn what works, then experiment. It’s always easiest – and best for your birds – to add a few bits to a firm foundation.
In the next part (should be with you day after tomorrow), we’ll discuss something that’s important to most of us when building a coop – ways you can keep the costs down.
Talk to you again in a couple of days!
PS: Part 2 will be with you day after tomorrow, and we’re going to look at something of interest to most of us – keeping costs down. Then we’ll get into a bit more detail. Part 3 will be about building a coop to last. In Part 4 we’ll look at keeping your lovely ladies safe. Part 5 will look positioning and Part 6 at some very useful (and some slightly luxurious) accessories. Finally Part 7 will cover important maintenance – you don’t want to spend time and money on your coop just to have it fall apart on you next year!
I say finally, but with your permission I’ll stay in touch after the course is finished – and keep you up to date with occasional chicken – related news and info. Don’t worry, I’m not going to be pecking at you every five minutes and if you ever get fed up with me at any point, one click and I’m gone!!!
PPS: If you’d rather go straight to a top-class set of chicken coop plans, with plenty of variety, full instructions and some bonus stuff to help you with your chicken keeping, have a look at these.