You need a Coop Plan to Build an Ideal Chicken Coop

Jan. 12, 2010 - PRLog -- Never thought there are so many people who wrote about chicken coops. I guess it's a green living fashion. People are talking about coop designs and how to construct. I would like to generalize some of my opinions here.

What is a chicken coop? It is a shed-like building to raise and keep your chickens, in the coop, chicken can run a little bit. An ideal chicken coop has bedding, nest boxes, litter, feeder, wired fence & floor, sturdy wall and roof, good ventilation system and easy to clean.

There are 3 types of coop on the market right now.

· The portable coop is light and small, it's a great choice for pet chicken or backyard chicken keeper. You can buy a manufactured coop according to number of chickens you'd like to raise and get it shipped to your door. Or you can build one yourself with the help of chicken coop plan.

· The semi-portable coop is ideal for larger flocks. You can move them but with limitation.

· The traditional hen house is for large numbers of chickens. It's for commercial use, keep laying hens for profit or food.

http://www.squidoo.com/ideal-chicken-coops

Build or Buy? It's totally up to you. In my case, I would prefer to buy a fully installed coop for the pet chicken owned by my son. My son is close to 3 years old. If he is close to school age, I would prefer to make our own coop because it will be a fun project for a young boy. That's why I did a lot of investigation about this subject.

Those premade coops are pretty attractive with all the added features, but it's pricey. The price range is from $350 to over $1000. I never thought that having pet chicken is so costly. Now I know why there are so many people are searching for coop plans, because they want to build their own coop in an inexpensive way. That's smart and fun.

After searching all the coop plans available, I noticed that in order to build an ideal chicken coop, we need to position the coop in right place, have right building materials, good insulation method, proper designed ventilation and lighting system, nesting, optimized litter collection and even take into consideration of the potential predators. The list goes on and on...

Though having a self sustained miniature farm is cool, green living, we will have fresh organic eggs everyday, recycles our food leftover and get high quality fertilizer, to build a chicken coop by self is still a challenge project to most of people. It's said if self build the coop will save around 50% of the retail price,if that's true, it might be worth of it.

I found out myself that even if there are so many free construct designs available, it's not working for everyone. If you have no previous woodwork experience, no profound knowledge about chicken breeds, you might miss some points here or there during the building process which will lead to a future inconvenience.

At this stage, I fully understand why a well structured chicken coop plan is so necessary to build your ideal chicken coop. Everyone will like to have your own chicken coop project, should find a practical step by step plan to start with. That way will save you not money but time and provides future convenience.