My dad had recently finished a construction in his garden and he had a lot of wood left over so I took the opportunity to use the leftovers to build the Chicken coop.
I did not have any detailed plans but drew a rough sketch based on a similar design I had seen.
Then I started putting it together with a friend of mine.
It is a simple split level design, basically a elongated triangle.
The nest boxes and perches are in the upper part with the door in the floor.
The advantage of this design is that the living area is suspended above the grass.
This is particularly useful for us as we have a very limited space allocated for the chicken and this maximizes the room with 2 layers.
The main thing you need to remember when building a chicken coop is that the chickens need something to perch on when they sleep and some nest boxes to lay their eggs.
They should have about 6-9 inches of perch per chicken and one nest box per 4 birds.
In my design the perch ran down the middle of the upper layer with a nest box at either end.
The chickens seemed to like it so that was the important thing.
For us keeping chickens in an urban environment was a great experience.
We never had any complaints from the neighbors, in fact quite the opposite.
There is one old man who lives a couple of doors down who said he loved hearing the chickens as it reminded him of they days when it was quite normal for a household to have a couple of chickens in the yard.
After all, unless you get a cockerel they do not make much noise.
Maybe more than a cat, but not as much as a dog.
During the day we normally let the chickens scratch about in the rest of the garden.
This is their natural instinct and if you want your chickens to be happy it is important to have an area of grass or soil where they can scratch about for things to eat.
It will keep them happy and occupied all day.
The biggest problem in urban areas of England for chicken keepers is the foxes.
For a long time we did not have a problem.
Due to the location of our house we did not get foxes in the back garden very often.
However, once they knew the chickens were there they came back every night.
We managed to catch one on video a few times which was nice, beautiful creatures but a real pest.
But don't let this put you off.
It is not difficult to make your coop fox proof and if you follow some good plans, protection from predators will be part of the design.
It is all part of the adventure.
So if you are thinking about how-to-build-a-chicken-coop [http://www.
givingitago.
com/how-to-build-a-chicken-coop/] get on with it, stop finding excuses.
It is not rocket science.
You will learn a lot as you do it and have great fun at the same time.
I did not have any detailed plans but drew a rough sketch based on a similar design I had seen.
Then I started putting it together with a friend of mine.
It is a simple split level design, basically a elongated triangle.
The nest boxes and perches are in the upper part with the door in the floor.
The advantage of this design is that the living area is suspended above the grass.
This is particularly useful for us as we have a very limited space allocated for the chicken and this maximizes the room with 2 layers.
The main thing you need to remember when building a chicken coop is that the chickens need something to perch on when they sleep and some nest boxes to lay their eggs.
They should have about 6-9 inches of perch per chicken and one nest box per 4 birds.
In my design the perch ran down the middle of the upper layer with a nest box at either end.
The chickens seemed to like it so that was the important thing.
For us keeping chickens in an urban environment was a great experience.
We never had any complaints from the neighbors, in fact quite the opposite.
There is one old man who lives a couple of doors down who said he loved hearing the chickens as it reminded him of they days when it was quite normal for a household to have a couple of chickens in the yard.
After all, unless you get a cockerel they do not make much noise.
Maybe more than a cat, but not as much as a dog.
During the day we normally let the chickens scratch about in the rest of the garden.
This is their natural instinct and if you want your chickens to be happy it is important to have an area of grass or soil where they can scratch about for things to eat.
It will keep them happy and occupied all day.
The biggest problem in urban areas of England for chicken keepers is the foxes.
For a long time we did not have a problem.
Due to the location of our house we did not get foxes in the back garden very often.
However, once they knew the chickens were there they came back every night.
We managed to catch one on video a few times which was nice, beautiful creatures but a real pest.
But don't let this put you off.
It is not difficult to make your coop fox proof and if you follow some good plans, protection from predators will be part of the design.
It is all part of the adventure.
So if you are thinking about how-to-build-a-chicken-coop [http://www.
givingitago.
com/how-to-build-a-chicken-coop/] get on with it, stop finding excuses.
It is not rocket science.
You will learn a lot as you do it and have great fun at the same time.
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