| How I Built a Chicken House to Keep My Own Backyard Chickens |
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Romemary Cortland. |
Hello My name is Rosemary Cortland. I am a housewife, mother and grandmother from Klamath, Oregon. About 18 months ago I also became the proud mother of six chickens. Getting ready for their arrival was great fun but also quite a lot of work. My husband and I had no idea about backyard chicken raising or where on earth to find hen house plans. I spent a good four months pouring over the web to find the information we needed. I settled on a book "Chicken DIY Guides" . I had read three other guides, by then, but this was the one that gave me the easiest to read information on hen house plans and assured me I could have a chicken coop built and ready to use over a couple of weekends. The plans also did not require any fancy specialist tools. In total my chicken coop cost me $97 to build. I calculated that I saved around $450, compared to if I had bought a ready made coop. When my chickens arrived they were so small. I instantly fell in love with them... as did my two grand daughters Rosie and Lisa. It is fun to see them play and try to teach the chickens tricks. Sometimes they succeed, but not without a lot of effort. We now have so many eggs. My neighbors look forward to my egg deliveries and even look after the backyard chickens for me when I vacation. |
 Rosie and Lisa holding Molly |
My plants also benefit where the chicken poop is the richest fertilizer. I read that it is full of nitrogen. I have added a load to our compost heap recently, so am waiting to see what effect that has on next years vegetable patch. The chickens also like to eat most of our scrap food, although I am careful as they can't eat some foods. My husband gets upset though as we put far less scraps into the composter now. So, below is some information on two of the Hen Houses plans books that I bought. I provide this information to hopefully save you some time (it took me 4 months of reading to get going!) and save you some money building your own hen house. Rosie tells me that the future of backyard chickens lies in my creating a blog and spreading the word of the amazing fun we have with our chickens. I may start one here soon if I can work out the technology! I hope you have as much fun and joy as we do with our chickens. Rosemary |
Below are the two guides to building a chicken coop that I found to be the most useful.
| My Top Pick - "Chicken DIY Guides" - Best Value for Money |
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| <<<<< Click here to go to see more information >>>>> I built my hen houses using this ebook. It is written for an everyday person and I did not need any fancy tools or equipment to build it. The instructions were easy to follow. It took me two weekends to complete our hen houses. There is a helpful check list before i started to make sure i had everything i needed. I also liked the technical support center that you get access to, this is a forum of other hen house builders. I got some pretty good advice from one of the other folks on there about how high i should put the roosting poles and the wood to use. (Even though this was in the book it turns out) There are some other items that you get free with this book. One of the most interesting was a city ordinance guide. It showed me how to check what the rules were in my area for keeping chickens in my backyard. If I had one quibble with this book it would be that there is not that many videos to watch. There are a few offered, the ones available were great and I would like to have seen a few more. I hope they build the library out over time. There is a video on the home page that you can view before you buy. Click here to view the video Click here to go visit the "Chicken DIY Guides" website |
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| My Second Pick - "How to Build a Chicken Coop in 3 Days" - fast to build |
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| This is my second choice (of the four) I liked the idea of building my hen houses in less than 3 days each. However, to be fair, my top pick book (Chicken DIY Guides) proved to be equally as quick. There is a members forum with this purchase which i have not asked a question in but had a few useful tips that i picked up. The instructions in the book were ok but I got a little lost some times. My Husband preferred this book though, but i won him over with the more tasteful designs that DIY Chicken Guides showed for the hen houses they showed you how to build. I liked the other free books that you get with this purchase. The Chicken Facts book was a good light read. I also quite liked the book they give you on "Raising Chickens in Cold Climates" (as well as a similar book for warm climates) There are three packages you can buy from this site. It is worth reading what you get before you purchase to make sure it suits your needs. I bought The "Chicken Coop Package" where i wish, in hindsight, that i had purchase the complete package as i believe the chicken raising books are quite good reading the review on the site. Click here to go visit the "How to Build A Chicken Coop In 3 Days" website |
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| Raise Your Own Backyard Chickens - Stamp Out Battery Farming |
When researching for my chicken coop, I found this website on Chicken Battery farms quite disturbing. Click to Visit. It really made me apprecaite how wonderful backyard chicken keeping is and how we need to do our best to protect these wonderful chickens from such horrible conditions. By not buying battery farm eggs we can all do our bit to stop this practice.
"Scientist and Experts on Battery Cages and and Laying Hen Welfare"
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Dr. Ian Duncan Department of Animal and Poultry Science, University of Guelph, Canada
"Battery cages for laying hens have been shown (by me and others) to cause extreme frustration particularly when the hen wants to lay an egg. Battery cages are being phased out in Europe and other more humane husbandry systems are being developed."
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Quote from ChickenDIYGuides site
"The ChickenDIYGuides Plans are easy to follow with great illustrations. the "Board cut list" is a plus for keeping costs down. Highly recommended for anyone looking to make a coop."
Mark A, Norwich CT
Quote from customer on ChickenDIYGuides site
"The ChickenDIYGuides plans are easy to follow with great illustrations. the "Board cut list" is a plus for keeping costs down. Highly recommended for anyone looking to make a coop."
Mark A, Norwich CT
- "ChickenDIYGuides" Home Page
- "Video- "What you Must Know about chicken coops"
Build a Chicken Coop for Under $100
"Chicken DIY Guides" is my top pick of the hen house plans available today. It has easy to follow plans and did not require any fancy tools. I built my coop with this guide for under $100, saving me over $450, compared to buying a pre-built coop.
"Chicken DIY Guides"
