How To Find The Best Chicken Coop Plans

Many chicken coop plans are available on the internet, but which ones give you what you need to build a good-quality hen house? If you are already familiar with keeping poultry, are good at detailed planning, making your own blueprints from basic plans or sketches, producing a comprehensive materials list before starting to put your hen house together, as well as being an experienced carpenter, then you will probably manage with any type of chicken coop plans you come across.

On the other hand, you might just be wasting your time and money if you get indifferent guidance, and you could actually design and build a chicken house that might be dangerous or unhealthy for your birds. Thorough planning, quality blueprints and clear advice are vital to the building of a proper living area for your hens.

As a minimum you should include the following in your planning:

Selecting a suitable location for the chicken coop in your yard or garden

Calculating the right size of chicken coop for the number of hens

Ensuring there is adequate ventilation and lighting in the coop

Choosing the layout and type of feeders and nesting boxes

Ensuring adequate protection from predators

Considering any services to the chicken coop such as electricity and water supplies

Most people will need expert advice and guidance to do this planning thoroughly, and will depend on good blueprints rather than sketches and vague layout drawings to make a proper hen house. Without such blueprints there is a good chance you will not produce a satisfactory hen house, it might not be sufficiently strong and it might let predators in.

If you take a casual approach to chicken coop plans you will end up wasting both time and money, your enthusiasm will take a dive and – maybe the most important – you will not get the enjoyment and satisfaction you should be getting. Also, unhappy or unhealthy hens do not lay well, so you will be denied those lovely free-range eggs you had so eagerly anticipated.

Before you can start assembling your hen house you will need to make a complete list of all materials required. This is essential, otherwise you will certainly encounter stoppages during the assembly when you find you have left out some bracket or other and the local hardware shop has already closed! Making a comprehensive materials list is quite difficult to do properly, and we feel that it would be much easier and safer to let a chicken coop expert do it for you.

It is so easy to make mistakes without this expert input. Often these will not become apparent until you have completed the hen house, and by then it could be too late to rectify any problems. It is certainly worth investing a few dollars to get professional advice and tips along the way, and usually these come complete with clear step-by-step instructions and schematic diagrams. We have discovered that good blueprints and clear instructions actually save money and time in the long run.

We have located and highly recommend a lady who has many years’ experience with chickens, Mary Nelson. She can supply the best chicken coop plans, in our opinion, including the all-important step-by-step instructions, lists of materials and professional advice for you to plan and make a hen house that will be exactly the way you wanted it. She will ensure you do not make all the usual first-time mistakes, and also show you how to make a happy, safe and healthy living area for your chickens. Mary is, we feel, the best source of good hen house designs.

Good luck and have fun!

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