There are many offers of chicken coop plans online, but which of these will result in a good-quality working chicken house? Provided that you are knowledgeable about how to keep poultry, are good at detailed planning, drawing your own blueprints from basic plans or sketches, producing a comprehensive materials list before starting to assemble your chicken coop, as well as being an experienced woodworker, then you will probably manage with any type of chicken coop plans you come across.
On the other hand, you might just be wasting your time and money if you get indifferent guidance, and you could actually design and build a chicken house that might be dangerous or unhealthy for your birds. Thorough planning, quality blueprints and clear advice are vital to the building of a proper living area for your hens.
Proper planning for making a good hen house will include at least:
- Selecting a suitable location for the chicken coop in your yard or garden
- Calculating the right size of chicken coop for the number of hens
- Ensuring there is proper ventilation and lighting in the coop
- Choosing the layout and type of feeders and nesting boxes
- Ensuring adequate safeguards from predators
- Considering any services to the chicken coop such as electricity and water supplies
To do this planning well, most people will need input and guidance from expert chicken coop designers, and will depend on good blueprints rather than sketchy plans and vague layout drawings to build a proper hen house. Without such blueprints there is a good chance you will not achieve a good functional chicken coop, it might not be strong enough and it might give ready access for predators.
You will definitely waste time and money (in wrong materials and get-around fixes) if you take a trial-and-error approach, your enthusiasm will take plenty of knocks and – maybe the most important – you will not enjoy the experience as much as you should. Also, unhappy or unhealthy hens do not lay well, so you will not get the dozens of free-range eggs you had expected.
A full list of materials for the assembly must be prepared before starting to make the coop. This is essential, otherwise you will come up against inevitable problems during the build when you find you have missed some bracket or fastener and your local hardware shop has already closed! It is quite difficult to make a complete materials list, and we feel that it would be much easier and safer to let a chicken coop expert do it on your behalf.
Without such an expert to guide you, it is very easy to make mistakes during assembly. Often these will not become apparent until you have completed the hen house, and by then it could be too late to sort out any problems. It is certainly worth investing a few dollars to get professional advice and tips along the way, and usually these come with the step-by-step instructions provided in top-quality chicken coop planning kits. We have discovered that good blueprints and clear instructions actually save money and time in the long run.
We have located and highly recommend a very experienced chicken expert, Mary Nelson. She can supply the best chicken coop plans, in our opinion, including the essential blueprints, step-by-step instructions, materials required and expert tips and guidance for you to plan and build a hen house that will fit your particular requirements perfectly. She will ensure you do not make all the usual first-time mistakes, and also show you how to make a happy, safe and healthy home for your chickens. In our opinion, Mary is the best source for hen house designs.
We hope you really enjoy making your chicken coop, and wish you lots of luck!
