Chicken Coop Backyard

by chicken house plans on Wednesday, April 14th, 2010 | Comments Off

Using backyard chicken coop plans to guide you in your construction is vitally important. There are several key items to keep in mind when selecting and building your very own backyard chicken coop. Follow these tips, and you can be enjoying fresh eggs daily sooner than you think.

Understand the angel of the sun. Many chickens can be impacted by the angel and amount of direct sunlight they receive. You can mitigate this easily by placing your coop properly in your yard. To get best results, you will need to know which direction your structure should be facing
Make sure air flow is sufficient. Chickens require air flow underneath the coop to lay eggs. As they will sit on their nest many hours at a time, getting air flow underneath them is critical to achieving success.
Know your surrounding animal population. The old say of a fox in the hen house is really true. Even in suburban areas, there are many potential predators for both the chickens and the eggs. You can easily mitigate this risk by building the chicken coop to protect your investment.
Get the right mix. Research and understand the right amount of roosters (male birds) to hens (female birds). Too many roosters and the competition will be stressful on the population. Too few and you will not see any results from your hens in terms of egg laying.

Using backyard chicken coop plans to build your own can be very rewarding, and very inexpensive. Just do a little research, and you can do this in a matter of a few days time.

To get more information, including the best set of backyard chicken coop plans, visit the chicken coop review site here: Building a Backyard Chicken Coop.

What is the ideal backyard setup for ducks and chickens?

We have a large chicken coop, a bit of miday shade, fencing and a plastic pool. We are raising 12 chickens for eggs and meat. We also have 2 ducks, male & female, hatched at the same time.

Considering the following, I'd like input of the best options:
1: ducks need water, the chickens shouldn't have a pond
2: they all should get locked in the coop at night
3: I can cover some or all of their chicken-wire-fenced area with more fencing but is it necessary with 5-foot high fence walls?
4: do they all need access to the shade?
5: what would allow the ducks to a pond area but not the chickens?

the rest of the backyard will also be fenced with 4 or 5 foot fence to keep any dogs out. We are near Asheville, NC

I have my chickens and ducks together, but separate the males from the rest. I put the females in with the male. Males tend to try to mate with the chickens and can hurt them.

1.) You can put the pond in the same pen, but make sure that it is away from mud or durt. I have a fence around the cage so that the water will not muddy up the pen.

2.) Yes, they should be locked in coop, make sure that watch the ducks, if you have a creek around your area they may travel.

3.) yes, coons ca climb and hawks can too sp make sure its safe.

4.) yes, they can be over heated fast in hot weather.

5.) be carful of preditors