The Important Things To Consider For Chicken Pens Plans and How To Build Chicken Pens
You are looking how to build chicken pens, well, the good news is that it is a comparatively easy process; however it must be said, that, as with a lot of things, planning is important. I’ve always subscribed to the saying that, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail”, and I feel this is definitely true of building chicken pens. When you are perusing over chicken pens plans you need to bear in mind that for any chicken pen of any style or size, there are certain things that importance for raising a chick must always be given due consideration.
Ensure Correct Sizing If your own chickens are quite likely to be kept within the coop for the majority of the time then size of your coop is of major importance. Chickens, like people, do need enough space for movement and sleeping as well as nesting. The best plans in regards to how to build chicken pens will mention how many chickens a specific design is expected to cater for. As a guideline, chickens you would consider to be indoor chickens, should have about three to five square footage of floor space in the nesting and sleeping area and should have approximately fifteen square foot each within the run. Of course, you can be flexible with this, as this is only a guideline, you may wish to give your chickens the chance to be free range for a fair bit of the time, whatever you decide you always need to ensure that your chickens can sleep comfortably.
Make Sure That Cleaning Is Not Difficult To Do You may have an aesthetically pleasing chicken pen however; this will not mean anything and will not be of use at all if you cannot clean it effectively. This is an important point to consider for a few reasons. First, chickens are susceptible to lice and mites, particularly the red mite, which is a small and spider-esque parasite. These mites can cause your chickens to lose feathers and can cause them extreme discomfort. Your chicken pen should not be difficult to clean, as you need to make sure you keep the red mite and other pests at bay. To do this you will need to dust the inside of your pen with a special powder intended for this very purpose and you will occasionally want to spray inside the pens with a weak disinfectant. It is for this reason and many more that you should be able to access your pen with ease. Additionally when looking for how to build chicken pens and looking at plans, you should look for plans which include dual access to the sleeping and nesting area. The two areas which I refer to are that you will need there to be access from both the run and the back of the pen. This will ensure that you do not have to get access for cleaning by way of using the run, as this can be a very messy area itself!
Protect Your Chickens from Predators Although it can be stressful to think about, the issue of predators must be addressed and as such the issue of how to deal with predators should also be addressed. The fox in particular is an especially wily predator that will try and get its hands on chickens any way that it can. To tackle this particular predator, and many other for that matter, such as the raccoon, I suggest using a heavy gauge wire mesh. Make sure that openings of any kind such as doors, are easily locked, so that your chickens are secure when needs be. If you are looking for chicken pen plans to use then I recommend you seek out the ones that employ methods to protect your chickens from tunnelling foxes. This issue can be dealt with in two main ways. Firstly attaching a wire mesh to the bottom of the chicken pen, and alternatively attaching a wire mesh that can go below the bottom of your chicken pen. The alternative method is particularly effective as it can be dug in and allow your chickens more protection making it less and less likely for a fox to get into your chickens pen!
Lighting and Ventilation for Chicken Pens Lighting is an especially important thing to think about if the main reason you are keeping hens is for them producing eggs. In the colder months hen’s naturally lay less eggs. This is due to the fact that a hen’s hormones are directly connected to the amount of sunlight they receive. It is not an uncommon occurrence for hens to stop producing eggs altogether during winter. They may not even start up again until there’s at least twelve hours of sunlight a day. There are of course ways to give your chickens artificial light. In any circumstance it would be cruel to keep your hens lit 24 hours a day 7 days a week anyway, especially during winter, so during the winter months, I recommend just increasing light for your chickens just by a few hours so that they can keep laying eggs. For ventilation there should be large bore-holes that are drilled into the sleeping/nesting area, as this will give your chickens air circulation and as such will help to prevent moisture build up and works to diffuse harmful gasses that are inevitably formed from chicken waste.
If you keep these elements in mind on how to build chicken pens, then you should have a sure-fire winner of a chicken pen! Enjoy!
