It’s very entertaining to watch your chickn and of course they will provide you with eggs and meat. It very often happens that people buy chicken and let them live outside without giving any real shelter to them; this is not a good thing, don’t do it. There are two main problems whne raising chicken; the first one are wild animals such as skunks and stray dogs that may wipe out a flock of chicken within one night. Another problem is that if raised this way your chicken will only lay few eggs, and if they do they will be hard to find. In this article I am going to give you two different ideas about how to make a chicken coop.

The first and easiest way to make a chicken coop is to convert a shed or an older camp trailer. The camp trailer works well because there is very little modification to be done. The most that needs to be done is to take the cabinet doors off and remove the table. There are a lot of areas where your chickne can roost. The cabinet areas make good laying boxes, all you have to do is put some straw in the cabinets and they will make their own laying areas. Once you have made this conversion it is easy to build a covered chicken run off the front of the trailer, it is important to remember to block off the underside of the trailer so that your chickens don’t escape underneath. A word of warning, if you plan to convert an old camp trailer into a chicken coop be sure you don’t intend to use it for anything else. Old camp trailers do not cost more than $200.00-$300.00 you can even get them free sometimes if you are willing to pull them away.

Often times when we ask how to make a chicken coop or anything else for that matter we try to rack our heads to come up with ideas for the perfect plan. If you are good at this type of planning that’s great or if you are just a weekend project type of person then you might like my second idea. Rather than pull your hair out coming up with elaborate plans for making your chicken coop, you can go to your local hardware store and buy a set of plans for a small or large wood shed for about $5.00 and even less. The size of the shed depends on how many chickens that you have. It is important to remember that you will have to build a roost and laying boxes if you decide too go this rout. A roost can simply be made out of two 2x4x8’s and three or four 2x2x8’s. Nail your 2×4’s about 7 feet apart at about a 45 degree angle, space the 2×2’s crossways and now you have a roost. Your egg boxes can be made our of ¼“ ply wood and 2×2’s, make sure to put dividers in them due to the fact that chickens like a certain amount of privacy when they lay eggs.

No matter which idea you pick make sure that you build a chicken yard off of the coop. It is also advised to put chicken wire over the top, this is to prevent hawks and crows to get into the chicken coop.

If you take good care of your chickens then they will take good care of you for along time. Building your own chicken coop is easier than you might think! the most important thing to get started is downloading a step by step blueprint. For a step by step guide on how to build a chicken coop visit Chicken Coop Plans

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