Chickens need to live in safe, clean and reasonably comfortable housing.  If they have this they will flourish and be good producers. Many poultry keepers choose to make their own coops and pens to give their birds a proper home. What, then, do the best hen house DIY guides provide to help chicken keepers give their birds an ideal living environment?

The best guides will provide a range of expert advice and instructions for not only getting the best chicken coop design but also the all-important subject of buying and caring for your precious hens.

The first aim of any design is to make a properly-planned coop and hen run available for the arrival of the poultry stock.  This living area should be easy to clean and maintain, safe from predators and healthy for the chickens.  The guide should have clear and comprehensive details about how to do all this.

Now let’s look at the design in a little more detail.  Hens need accommodation that is clean, safe, healthy and even  a little cozy. The coop and run have to be large enough for the planned number of hens but not too large – chickens are sociable and like to be reasonably close together.  The guide should indicate how to get this balance right.

The coop needs to provide easy access for cleaning as well as good feeding and watering arrangements.  This also applies to collecting eggs from the nesting boxes, which should be easy to open without alarming the hens.

Keeping the birds out of the reach of predators is super important with any coop and pen design.  They have to be denied access to your precious birds.  This subject will be discussed in great detail by the best chicken coop guides.

In  addition to covering these main design points, the good guides will also include a lot of information about siting the coop and pen, providing the rather critical lighting and ventilation needs of hens, finding the most economic building materials, making cheap but efficient nesting boxes and even choosing the right birds.

Selecting the right poultry breed for your specific needs and circumstances is a huge subject but will be included in the best diy guides.  The right feed, proper feeding methods and all necessary maintenance tasks will be listed in detail.

The heart of any diy guide is the assembly plans and drawings – these should be clear, easy to understand and laid out in a simple step-by-step building sequence.  They must include comprehensive materials lists and all the tools required.  It is really annoying to reach a critical assembly stage and find a vital part is missing.

Most importantly, the best chicken coop guides will enable you to customize their plans to fit your exact requirements.  There is no need to use a standard design that does not suit your particular requirements – probably the reason you want to avoid buying a readymade coop  and making your own in any case.

Building your own hen house and pen using fully adaptable plans is the way to go

Most of the hen house guides do not cover all these points properly, but there are a couple that are really excellent. These, the best chicken coop design layouts currently available, will give you all you need to choose and keep chickens safely, healthily and happily.

Kieran Gracie has a background in engineering and farming. Having examined a number of chicken coop guides he has found and is able to strongly recommend the best hen house diy guides currently available. These fulfil all the important requirements he considers essential for good chicken living areas. His website, BuildThingsDirect.com, provides many other ideas and interesting projects for beginners and experienced do-it-yourself people alike to enjoy.

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