DIY Chicken Coops

Like all pets chickens do take a measure of time to feed, water, collect eggs, clean nesting areas and clean their coop. However the minimum time need to do these items is just a few minutes per day. When designing your chicken coop, there are several factors to consider for providing an inviting environment and simplicity for you to maintain.

Your chicken coop should be designed with a few things in mind. First, comfort for your birds, giving your chickens space to move about their enclosure allowing them a more normal life. Reduction of stress will yield a higher egg laying ratio. This also allows them the opportunity to scratch for food and utilize their natural pecking instinct. To encourage this behavior, toss a handful of feed to the ground in their pen or around their coop if chickens are free to roam outside a pan.

Second, is ease of feeding and watering. Unlike most animals, chickens do not utilize one section of their enclosure as a place to poop. With that in mind anywhere within the pen where chickens have access to food and water at all times is a good place. However, also keep in mind that moisture will make it hard for food to automatically dispense from the feeder. So keeping water and feed separate as well as keeping feed in a dry environment protected from rain or snow will minimize your effort. Additionally, depending on the size of your flock, feed and water containers range from 1 gallon to 500 gallons of dry feel. Picking a large feeder allows you to simply monitor feed levels rather than continually filling smaller containers. It is also important in colder climates to have a heating source so water is not continually frozen and undrinkable.

Finally, we must think about ease of egg collection. The fewer times you enter your flock’s space, the more relaxed their environment will be. This becomes a crucial part of our coop planning which we discuss in detail in the OUR article, “How to build a Chicken Coop.” Considering we have taken different pieces of advice from that article to fit our needs, having nesting boxes where eggs can be reached through a latching back door retrievable from outside the pen or through a hinging roof on your fully enclosed nesting area. Collecting eggs is done quickly and very simply. After you have collected your eggs, it is important to check them for any cracking or breaks. Any egg with a crack or break should be discarded. All suitable eggs should then be thoroughly but gently scrubbed down and cleaned before placing in your egg crates and must be refrigerated. This process also only takes a few minutes but is necessary to eliminate Salmonella.