Chicken House Plans How To Build Your Own Chicken House and Save Money

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I love chickens and I love raising them.
You want to have plans so that your baby chicks will 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 particular family, we were given a "gift" of about a dozen baby chicks one fine Easter morning. My first impression was, "holy cow, where are all these chickens going to sleep???" However, I remembered another great saying "if life hands you lemons, make lemonade." (I swear, no more quotes).
Now I wasn't thinking of eating the chickens, but with the cost of fresh eggs going up, then the most reasonable thing to do was at least build a chicken house for the little chickadees. I was reveling in the thought about how fun it would be -- a family project to build a chicken house, and soon we would be enjoying our own organically fresh eggs. This was a one-time investment, if done right, it will pay in fresh eggs for years. :-) 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 here, you will have a good idea what size limits you have. One thing to be mindful about is that a basic 4 by 8 foot structure. This is easier for your material needs because the plywood and other materials have a standard 4 x 8 foot size.

Secondly, you want to establish the frame for the chicken house play area. You can accomplish this with nails or screws at the bottom of the four pieces. (You really should use screws that you can drive with an electric screwdriver. This makes it easy to disassemble in case you ever need to move your chicken house; you can simply unscrew the wood and away you go!) 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 your chicken house frame is done, you can begin with the actual house. Most people install a chicken house door, and if so, you need to determine where it will go. 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. Attaching the door will depend on what kind of door you prefer. 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). Our door had a long wooden dowel added to prop in the "up" position so we could easily access inside the chicken house.
The next step is generally installing the roof. Plywood (which comes in 4 x 8 foot sheets) is perfect for this, but you can check with your local lumbar supplier to see if your location requires a different type of building material. Once the roof is up you can move forward with the nesting area of your chicken house.
Here, the size is going to depend on the number of chickens you want to raise. A basic 4 foot by 8 foot chicken house is probably enough room to raise 10 chickens. For our nesting area, we made two support from 4 foot sections attached on both sides of our frame to support the nesting box. With the support in place, you can build a basic nesting box out of plywood to place on this support system.

The location of this nesting area is in the back wall (away from the small chicken entrance) where our upward opening door is location for easy access to the fresh eggs. In the front of your chicken house you want to cut an opening, much like the size of a small pet door, so that the chickens can access the chicken house 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.
Ventilation and lighting are critical to your chicken's health and welfare. You may want to have open sides that can be closed with hinged doors made of plywood.This way, the doors can be opened and closed for ventilation during hot days, and closed at night for protection.
For your chicken coop floor, you have a few 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.

With a solid chicken house, you will provide your chickens with a healthy, safe living residence where they can grow and prosper. Our family enjoyed watching the chickens grow, and they took pride in the eggs that were collected for our breakfast table. Enjoy your flock of chickens, and make sure you consider these steps in your Chicken House Plans.

Article Source: http://depositarticles.com/

Millie has been raising chickens for too many years, but you can get more information at her site for Chicken House Plans.

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