Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Tips On Building A Chicken Coop Interior And Exterior

By David Daffae


In today's world, a lot of people are looking for ways to make their life more self-sustainable. Some people are resorting to gardening, some are looking into solar panels and making use of wind for power. And yet others are wisely raising animals such as chickens for an unending source of protein. In this article I'm going to give you some tips to consider when your planning on building your chicken coop interior and your exterior.

Tip 1: To start you will have to look up you local laws concerning chickens. There are laws in certain states that make it illegal to own your own chicken coop without proper permits and such. Some states it's even illegal to own a rooster.

Tip Two. One small but utterly invaluable tip is to have the chicken coop floor slightly slanted towards the door. This is a huge help when cleaning your chicken coop. It makes it much easier to sweep dust out of your chicken coop and will stop puddles from forming if their is a leak in the roof or if you are hosing down the inside. Puddles are bad because they make the chicken coop damp and this makes it easier for chickens to get sicker.

Tip Three. Possibly the most neglected essential of a chicken coop is ventilation. If their is no ventilation in your chicken coop then your chickens health is at serious risk to ammonia buildup mold or carbon dioxide buildup to name just a few.

Ventilation should be kept up all the time even in winter when your scared the air outside of the chicken coop is to cold for your chickens. If you are really scared that your chickens will catch frostbite then you can install a heater or some insulation. To keep your ventilation high just open up the windows though make sure they have screening.

Tip Four: Lighting helps your chickens in so many ways. Not only does it make the inside of the coop warmer but also it makes your chickens eat more and their for produce more eggs. To get maximum natural light install your windows so that they face south.

Its important that if you do use artificial lighting that you make sure that the lights are installed somewhere where the chickens cant get it. High up works best. Also you have to make sure that its not a fire hazard as it if you put it in the wrong place and it falls down it could cause a fire in the straw or whatever shaving your putting on the ground.

Tip 5: Determining where to place the waters and feeders. Placing them around the coop where it will be easy for your chickens to access is best, but usually i place them along the wall or directly in the middle of the coop. Chickens will scratch their food a lot so buying feeders that keep chickens from doing this is best. You also don't want them stepping in their food with feces encrusted feet.

The best feeders to do this is either a feeder that only feeds the chickens a little bit at the time. But these can be a little bit expensive. I personally just get feeders where the chickens have to stretch their necks to get to the food.




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