Best Chicken Coop Plans
Many chicken coup plans (or chicken house plans) are available online, but which ones give you what you need to build a good-quality hen house? Where can you get the best chicken coop plans or hen house designs?
If you:
- know all about keeping backyard chickens
- know how to design proper housing for them
- are good at preplanning
- are able to draw your own blueprints from basic plans or diagrams
- have the skill to produce a full materials list before starting to assemble your chicken coup
- are also an experienced woodworker
then you will probably get by with any general sketches or free chicken coop designs you come across.
If you want to know how to build a chicken house properly and professionally, here are some ideas and suggestions that will save you time and money.
Click here to check out the best chicken coop plans currently available
You might just be wasting your time and money if you get indifferent guidance, and you could actually be building a hen house that might be dangerous or unhealthy for your birds. Careful, accurate planning and proper chicken house plans are vital for building good chicken coups.
Good planning for making a working chicken coup will include as a minimum:
- Selecting a suitable location for the hen house build in your yard or garden
- Calculating the right size of chicken coup for the number of hens to be housed
- Ensuring proper lighting and ventilation for the birds
- Choosing the layout and type of feeders and nesting boxes
- Designing adequate protection from predators
- Considering any services to the chicken coup such as electricity and water supplies
Most people will need expert advice and guidance to do this planning thoroughly, and will rely on good chicken coop plans rather than sketches and vague layout drawings to build a proper hen house. Without proper blueprints there is a good chance you will not achieve a good functional chicken coup design, it might not be strong enough, it could cause disease and it might let predators in.
You will definitely waste time and money (in wrong materials and get-around fixes) if you take a trial-and-error approach, your enthusiasm will take plenty of knocks and – perhaps most importantly – you will not enjoy the experience as much as you should. Also, unhappy or unhealthy hens are poor layers, so you will not get the dozens of free-range eggs you had expected.
Before starting to make the chicken coup you will need to prepare a comprehensive list of materials needed for the job. This is essential, otherwise you will come up against inevitable problems during the build when you find you have overlooked some bracket or fastener and the local hardware store is closed for the day! Making a comprehensive materials list is quite difficult to do properly, and we can honestly say that it is so much better (and safer) to let a chicken coup expert do it for you. Good quality chicken coup plans are really necessary for building poultry housing properly.
This is an example of a good quality materials list from the Build A Chicken Coop plans we recommend:
Without such expert guidance it is very easy to make mistakes during assembly. Often these will not become obvious until you have finished, and then it could be too late to sort out any problems. It is certainly worth investing a few dollars to get professional advice and tips along the way, and usually these come with the step-by-step instructions provided in the best plans for chicken coops. In our experience we have found that good plans and instructions actually save the builder money overall because he does the job properly in the first place.
We have found and strongly recommend a very experienced chicken expert, Bill Keene, who has produced, in our opinion, the best chicken coop plans currently available, including all the necessary information, step-by-step instructions, drawings, blueprints, material lists and professional guidance for you to plan and build chicken coops that will fit your particular requirements perfectly.
He will help you to avoid the frustrations and pitfalls often made by first-time builders, and also show you how to make a happy, safe and healthy home for your hens.
Good luck with your chicken coup design, and have fun!
Click here to check out the best chicken coop plans
