Do you want to raise chickens? Are you looking to find the right way to give them a comfortable home? Good! Before actually obtaining your livestock, you should ensure that you get them the perfect place to live – which is where chicken coops plans can help you!

Some people find that going into a store and paying over $1,000 is the easiest way to get a home for their poultry. In reality it is, but you can save tonnes of money by building it yourself!

Here are 4 tips to help you get the job done!

Tip #1 – Adequate space

A lot of people that raise animals do not take into account the space that they require. This is a fundamental error, as cramping chickens into a small space will lead them to be uncomfortable and they are likely to attack or even kill each other.

Here is a top tip for you; try and ensure that each chicken has around 5 square foot of space each. Chicken coops plans will essentially suggest the same thing.

Tip #2 – Easy maintenance

There are loads of chicken coops for sale – at a price. Building your own is easy if you have a good set of chicken coop plans and instructions, whether you are a new chicken keeper and want a simple hen house, or an experienced keeper who wants a more sophisticated chicken coop

Its a great family project too. Depending on the ages of your children, they will be able to help building the chicken coop by doing something: fetching and organising the materials, telling you what to do next, assembling some of the pieces or even building the entire chicken coop.

The first thing to decide is what kind of chicken coop is right for you. If you only have, or are planning to get, a few hens, say around three, then a chicken ark could be a good solution.

Chicken arks can be moved each day so the chickens get fresh ground to graze, or you can leave them in one place and let the chickens out. A chicken ark is a simple triangular shape with a nest box and roosting space at one end and a run at the other. Building a chicken ark is a simple project that would take a day to build.

Building a chicken coop is not only a great hobby but it is also an invaluable skill that will serve you for years to come. Learning to raise healthy chickens will provide you with fresh organic eggs on a daily basis and you can even use your newfound skills to make money by building coops for other people as well. One of the most important elements when getting started for the first time with a coop is to always have the proper building plans.

If you’re building your own coop from one of the various chicken coop designs out there, it may or may not already include nesting boxes. If it doesn’t, all you really need is some plywood, a hammer and nails, and possibly some sandpaper to smooth the edges out afterward. A nesting box is really just that – a box, usually about one foot on all sides. Typically if you are constructing your boxes from plywood, you integrate several nesting boxes together as a single unit. Once you’ve built them, fill them up with straw or wood shavings and your hens will be right at home.