Chicken Coop Space Tips and Requirements You Need to Know
Whenever we are looking to house our chickens, a lot of questions crop up. Among these questions are some concerns about the actual coop space and the requirements involved. The coop can be rendered barely useful if it doesn’t adhere to certain requirements that are frequently utilized. Let’s check those out and help you house your chickens comfortably.
Make a plan before starting work
It’s important to have all of our plans lined up before actually beginning construction. Scout out the space you have on offer first. The overall area we are ready to dedicate to a chicken coop is going to reflect the overall size of it that we can construct. This will also dictate any additional area of the coop that may be deemed necessary.
After the overall surface it will take up has been decided, you should check for proper sketches and plans for the structure themselves. These will mandate a lot of variables of the remaining work. That includes cost, materials used, capabilities, and maintenance. Knowing how big of a chicken coop you can reasonably build is key towards making the optimal choice during construction. Without this consideration, it’s possible to make plans that we cannot follow up on. Either the problems that come with that will hit us immediately in terms of construction costs or later in the form of maintenance costs.
All utilities that may be needed for your chicken will also need to be incorporated. That’s why you should keep them in mind when constructing the coop. Looking at premade plans is very useful for those who are looking for proper guidelines in constructing a coop. They will often contain plans for said utilities and any extra details that may be required.
Alternatively, you can order a whole coop. With services like Aivituvin we can find what fits us best in a very short span of time. However, you should still make sure there’s enough space and a proper location to actually put the coop in.
Take the number of birds into account
There’s no need to build an overly big coop if you don’t have too many birds. Having enough space is good but excess space may be unnecessary. If you are building multiple coops it’s also better to spread the birds into two equal sized chicken coops than one big one.
It’s important to avoid cramped coops at all costs. This will not only affect birds badly psychologically but also make them more susceptible to aggressive outbursts due to the proximity of other chicken. If any of the birds gets diseased, the disease will spread far faster. The problem this causes is worrisome because in just a short span of time all of your birds could be infected. Depending on the type of disease at play, we could face a horrible situation where most of our birds die out.
Make sure to leave enough free space. At least 2 square feet of space is required for each bird within the coop. However, if you want to have your chicken be free-range while solely sticking it to the coop, you’ll need a run too. The run should have at least 4 square feet provided for each bird.
Last thing to take into account is how often your chicken will be forced to stay within the coop. Those who live in winter areas will definitely keep their birds in for a much longer time. In that case, it’s important to make the area more spacious for the birds. Otherwise, the above-mentioned problems could occur as well as some new ones.
Secure the chicken coop
While the overall construction of the coop may seem safe enough, it’s definitely useful to reinforce our defenses against the potential predators. The predators can sneak in through a variety of holes left within the defenses of the coop. Take extra effort to protect them. Securing the coop with some fence works but make sure that the above and below parts of the fence are properly reinforced with hazards. Predators could try to dig under or claw their way in from above so taking extra care of those areas is useful.
Some suggest using an electric net which can be turned on when chickens are closed within the coop. If you do get a defensive system like this, make sure to keep it in mind before using the coop or releasing chickens. This extra care may be too much for some to think about but if you do have a predator problem, it definitely pays off.
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Use DIY and recycled materials to save cash
The spendings related to the chicken coop can be easily cut down by using our ingenuity and some effort to make our own chicken coop or at least part of it by using remaining materials we have lying around. The act of constructing such a chicken coop will include understanding the requirements and uses of different materials.
Not everything fits everywhere. Some areas need a ton more reinforcement while others can be decently simple and still allow us to lose no quality in the chicken coops construction. With the use of already available materials and the lack of quality loss, we can make something that will save money. You can choose to invest that money in some other area of the coop. For example, maybe the rough construction and each chicken nest has been made of recycled materials but the cut in costs will be used to make those more comfortable. Alternatively, that money could be going towards the defensive measures we take against predators.
Regardless of the way we utilize the cash, the DIY aspect can really help us put together a custom chicken coop that doesn’t cost a lot. Size of the coop can then be expanded and made to fit the chickens we currently have. No chicken will end up in a cramped coop space this way. Additionally, we can expand the coop by using these DIY tactics. Even if the initial build wasn’t done in that way, the expansion can be. Just make sure that any connections are secured otherwise there could be mishaps.