The Best Chicken Coop Designs Are The Easiest To Build

The best chicken coop designs are the ones that incorporate the 'must have' elements into the design. Remember the chicken coop you build--has to house and protect your chickens for a long time.

Your first consideration should be 'How Big?' The coop needs to be sized to properly accommodate the number of birds you intend to house in it. Fowl raised in captivity require a specific amount of space.

Deprive them of that space --in other words crowd your birds and you will encounter problems. Problems like having the more aggressive birds tormenting, attacking and pecking the more docile ones, sometimes to the point of death. This sort of behavior happens in factory farms all the time, which is the main reason large egg producers have the chicken's beaks (painfully I might add) clipped to prevent them from pecking each other while in close proximity.

Once you have figured out how big the coop will be. The next issue is the location. Where are going to put the coop in your yard (If you have chosen a mobile design this issue doesn't matter)?

How you decide will depend on a few factors; drainage, predator threat, orientation to the Sun, and protection from winter winds.

Good chicken coop designs always include information about these issues and how you can use the attributes of your yard to your and advantage.

They will also mention the need to seal the coop from potentially deadly drafts, but also allowing for proper ventilation (this may sound confusing, but it can be accomplished). But if you know in advance the solutions it is actually handled quite easily.

How you handle the location and orientation of the nesting boxes also needs to be covered, because you want the chickens to nest 'not sleep--on the nesting boxes and you want easy access to the eggs.

A topic that needs to be discussed is the intended location of windows to be used in the coop.

Natural daylight for your chickens is important and knowing how best to take advantage of natural light is a big plus.

Good chicken coop designs must cover ways and means to protect you birds from predators of all stripes—domesticated cats and dogs, flying attackers like hawks, Owls, and falcons. Suburban and country predators--Raccoons, Fox, Skunks Coyotes, Bobcats, Wolves and Cougars. Each type of predator needs a specific defense.

Ease of cleaning and maintenance of the coop is something that should be considered before you build.

These are just some of the requirements that chicken coop designs must have to serve as quality functional guidelines in the construction of the best possible chicken coop for your birds.