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"My chickens are happy with their new home..."
"Have you been planning to make a cozy,
comfortable and tidy coop for your chickens?
Well, follow the guidelines in this wonderful
resource! My chickens are happy with their
new home! Bill's book helped me make a well-planned, easy-to-clean-and-maintain coop for my chickens. I got practical tips on locating, positioning, protecting and maintaining the climate in the coop. Like me, it will help you too to choose the appropriate size, building design and materials for construction. This book not only helps you save while you build, but also enjoy the freedom to customize the coop to your individual specifications and needs. With valuable inputs on light and ventilation, I was able to ensure that the coop position was such that it allowed enough light in, but did not make the coop draughty. I particularly enjoyed the creative and innovative ideas thrown in about building low cost nesting boxes with material lying around the house. It set me exploring my own creativity and resourcefulness! An informative and easy to follow read, this book will guide you in building your own coop at a fraction of the cost of purchasing one! "
Rachana Misra - Go Green Farms™ Owner

Positioning Your Coop

Thanks for sticking with me over the last while and learning more about the various factors needed to successfully build your own chicken coop.  Today’s topic is another very important one you must pay attention to because like the others, it will have a direct influence over how many eggs your chickens lay and therefore, how happy you are overall with the results of your chicken coop.

This topic is where you should be placing your chicken coop.  Selecting the perfect spot on your yard to place your chicken coop will be important so that you’re happy with it for years to come.  Consider it from a variety of angles because many things are going to be impacted by where the coop is located. 

Here are just a few to consider:

Protection

First up you should think about predatory animals.  If you didn’t read the last newsletter this was talked about to a much greater depth, so you may want to go back and read that now.  Basically, the general idea is that the closer you can place your chicken coop to where you are going to be, the easier it will be to keep an eye on the chicken coop.

Also, if you happen to have a very large farm, you may only have certain areas of your yard that encounter animals, so choosing to place the coop as far away from that would be a very smart move.

Climate

Another factor that needs to be considered with the location of your chicken coop is the climate.  Do you live in a very hot area? Or do you get a lot of rain regularly? If you get rain frequently, you may consider building the chicken coop in an area that is more protected by nearby trees, helping to reduce the amount of direct rain that hits the house.

Also, if you do get a lot of rain, you’ll want to build the coop away from an area of the yard where water typically runs to since if that happens, you’re likely to have a flood chicken coop on your hands.

Finally, if it gets very windy where you live, this is another reason to consider building the chicken coop in an area that’s near a decent amount of trees or other buildings to help shield the chickens from the wind.  While you do definitely want good ventilation in the coop, you don’t want gusts of wind on a regular basis.

Sunlight

Finally, since your chickens are going to really require a good amount of natural sunlight in order to lay eggs effectively, try and build your chicken coop in an area that’s well lit and faces the sun.  You want to always maximize this otherwise you’ll have to run electrical light to the chicken coop which can become a very costly venture over time.

So, keep these factors in mind as you go about deciding exactly where to place your chicken coop. If you do, you’ll be happy with it for the long term and you’ll definitely notice a big difference in the amount of fresh eggs you get daily.

Next time we’re going to take a look at the different chicken coop accessories you can also incorporate including feeders and nesting boxes to name a few.