How To Build A Chicken Coop
How To Build A Chicken Coop
In other countries, raising chickens is one of the top agriculture that raise funds in their living. They breed chicken and sell it to big restaurants. Having chickens on your farm is not only a good idea, but it is also economical. Many farmers have profited off of their investments of a few flocks of chicken. They have discovered hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars in extra income from their chickens. Now, before raising chickens you can actually think first of their home. You can do it by yourself to save money, it is basically the easiest thing to do in this business. Building a chicken coop is now a do-it-yourself chores. How to build a chicken coop?
Poultry can be made to do well almost anywhere, just as cattle are made profitable on many farms not especially adapted for dairying. Management and system of chicken house should be varied to suit the location. Some good paying poultry farms are on stiff, heavy clay land, where water collects in pools after rain. Others just as profitable are on rather thin, light soil. Still, it is generally agreed that a good, free, well drained loam has certain advantages. The soil dries quickly after a rain, snow melts more quickly, it warms rapidly in the sun, every shower purifies it by carrying down a part of the impurities. On wet, heavy soil the fowls should have very wide range or the ground becomes muddy and unwholesome. Yet such land is a rich storehouse of plant food and affords the best of grass and insect diet even when drought checks all fresh growth on other land. Heavy land is best suited to the colony or free range systems. Some of the largest and most profitable farms have been thus located and conducted, and the fowls maintained in perfect health and vigor.
Foundation and Walls - It pays to have a stone foundation for the chicken coop reaching down to frost line, or from one to three feet below the surface and rising about one foot above the, ground level. When covered with earth, a dry, dusty floor is ensured all winter, and rats are kept out even without a cement covering for the stone floor. Anything but a stone foundation is likely to take up more or less moisture, which will freeze and thaw, making the floor hard and cold, or muddy, neither state being suitable for scratching and for dust baths. Floors below ground are unsatisfactory in moist climates Dampness works in, spoils the scratching floor, stops laying and causes lameness, colds and bowel trouble. If the floor, however, has been raised by a rock filling, the outside of the building may be banked with earth to good advantage.
Tight Foundations - When small buildings are erected upon the farm, there is a temptation, in the interest of economy, to omit the tight stone foundation and put the building on posts. This leaves the building open beneath and permits the cold winds to reduce the temperature. A plan is shown in the cut, Figure I of How to Build a Chicken Coop, which obviates this. The walls are boarded up and down, using matched cedar boards, and allowing these to extend to the ground, as shown. A little soil is then banked up against the lower end, which is grassed over quickly, making a tight foundation that will last many years. If the framing is made to use crosswise boarding, illustrations are here at How to Build a Chicken Coop, using a wide cedar board to extend from the sill down to the ground, and bank with a few inches of earth as before mentioned. The building can then be shingled or clapboarded.
In placing a chicken house, let it face the south or as nearly so as possible. It is cooler in summer and warmer in winter than one facing either east or west. The sun in summer during the hottest part of the day is nearly directly overhead and does not shine in so strongly in a south window. In winter, when low in the heavens, the south window catches more of the sun’s rays.
Now, in starting to build a chicken house, you may want to see more illustrations and even videos on How to Build a Chicken Coop.
By: Jhanz Theron
Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com
Jhanz Theron is an entrepreneur that begins earning in agriculture like chicken raising. She actually build the chicken house herself. So she now share the How-to-Build-a-Chicken-Coop-Easily>Do It Yourself - How to Build a Chicken Coop.
