Chicken House Plans - A Family Project and Good Investment
Chicken House Plans
There’s an old saying that goes about people . . . “don’t plan to fail; they fail to plan.” (I believe that was Harvey MacKay). Same holds true for your Chicken House Plans. You want to have plans so that your baby chicks wil grow in a healthy, safe environment. There are a number of reasons that families want to raise chickens, as many as there are people. In our case, our family received a dozen baby chicks one Sunday for Easter. At first I thought “what the heck am I going to do with chickens???” However, I remembered another great saying “if life hands you lemons, make lemonade.” (I swear, no more quotes). I was not thinking of eating the little chicks, but the thought of low-cost eggs sounded like a great idea to me. I thought about how fun it would be — a nice family project to build a chicken house, and we would at least have some fresh eggs. It was a one-time investment that if done correctly, it could pay off for years just in fresh eggs alone. 
So when you are looking for the best Chicken House Plans, consider these following steps in your plan. The first thing you need to plan is where you will locate your new chicken house. From this point, you will know what your limitations are. One thing to be mindful about is that a basic 4 by 8 foot structure. This makes it easy on the materials sides because most plywood and other materials come in 4 x 8 foot sheets. Secondly, you want to establish the frame for the chicken house play area. This can be done by attaching by nails or screws the bottom of four pieces together. (I recommend using screws and an electric screwdriver. This makes it easy to take apart if you ever want to move your chicken house: simply unscrew and move the wood parts!) With this done, then you can attach two corner sections, each consisting of two pieces to make the respective corner. With the framework finished, the play area can be closed off with chicken wire. Once the basic chicken house frame is complete, you can begin with the actual house. You really should install a chicken house door and determine its placement. It’s been our experience that if you put the door closer to the nesting area rather than in the front, it works a little bit better for your other tasks down the road. How you attach the door is going to be determined by what kind of door you would like. We had a door that opened toward the back of the nesting area that had a long piano hinge across the top, and the door opened by pulling the door up (toward the sky). You can use an old broom handle or other pole to hold the door open so you can get to the eggs in the nesting area. The next step is generally installing the roof. Plywood is perfect for this becase it comes in 4 x 8 foot sheets, but check with your local lumbaryard for other material options in your area. When the roof is done, you can go forward with the nesting part of the chicken house. The size of your chicken house will depend on how many chickens you will raise. A 4 x 8 foot basic chicken house is generally good to raise approximately 10 chickens. We built our nesting area by making two 4 foot sections attached to the bottom of the frame as support for our nesting box. When the support structure is in place, you can place your basic nesting box (made from plywood) on top of the supports. The nesting area usually goes near a back wall away frorm the front entrance (and near that door location for eeasy acces to the eggs. in the front, cut a small entrance door, like a small pet door, so your chickens have acces to the play area. When completed, you want to make sure you sand smooth all the edges and corners for the safety of your chickens. You also want to double check that no sharp edges of the chicken wire protrude and are either removed or bent in such a way that they will not harm the chickens. Lighting and ventilation are important to the health and welfare of your chickens. You may want to have open sides that can be closed with hinged doors made of plywood. That way you can open the doors in the daytime hours for light and ventilation, and they can be closed in the evening or when you need to protect the chickens from bad weather. On the floor of your coop you have several options. Most folks use sawdust, but some farms and others have access to hay or use straw. Some people even used sand as a bottom for their chicken coop. Check with your local feed store or veterinarian to see what is the best material for the weather conditions in your area. Having a solid chicken house will provide your chickens with a safe, healthy environment where they can grow and prosper. For us, the kids enjoyed watching the chickens grow, and they loved getting the eggs for our breakfast table. Enjoy your flock of chickens, and make sure you consider these steps in your Chicken House Plans
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