For a well-organized chicken coop and therefore to raise healthy hens, it is necessary not to install and equip your chicken coop anyhow. As such, you will find below good advice for the implementation and as it should be of your future chicken coop. Hens have special needs just like humans, so it is necessary to consider all these needs before thinking about harvesting good fresh eggs or eating a future good and delicious well-roasted chicken...
To be well, the hens must be safe, dry, in your future chicken coop.
Chickens do not like drafts and humidity, which is why the wooden chicken coop is the material that best meets the needs of gallinaceae. The wood offers perfect insulation, it must be thick and rot-proof which will ensure a longer duration over time. There are many chicken coops on the market at all prices. However, there is necessarily quality and quality, so don't expect a chicken coop for a few euros to last more than one winter at home, you should think about that too...
A chicken coop made of oak, acacia, chestnut, can, for their part, resist for a very long time, but they are rarely sold in garden centers which prefer to sell chicken coops made of Douglas pine or Scots pine which, however, can resist just as much. than oak. It is also and above all a question of cost...
To properly consider the needs of the hens, the henhouse must be well installed, ventilated but without drafts because the hens hate it. It must also be well secured and it must be easy to clean because maintenance is also an important step, so you might as well choose a chicken coop that is well designed on this side too.
The accessories, the equipment are very important, especially the nests, the feeder and the drinker.
You have to choose the perfect location for your chicken coop, it must be close enough to your home, the hens will have a completely different behavior if they somehow feel that they are also part of the family... The entrance of the chicken coop, ideally should be planned to the east or south/east, avoid the north wind and choose a place protected from bad weather. The chicken coop must be warm and dry, for this it can be sunny part of the day, perfect with the morning sun, in the shade the rest of the day, it must not be humid, very dry air must circulate inside the chicken coop.
The mortality of hens, especially in winter, is often linked to causes of humidity and proliferation of fungi, hence the importance of good insulation and everything that we have just seen just before.
The henhouse must be well designed, if at the beginning, the Design can attract you, take care all the same of the essential arrangements to make the best choice. For the recovery of droppings, with a sufficiently wide perch, with separate nests, this is the basis of the comfort of the hens. The perch must consider at least 20 cm of space per hen. The laying nest is essential if you want to harvest good fresh eggs and if you want to make a chicken coop for that. A square or a rectangle of 25 to 30 cm on each side will be very suitable for a hen. The hens share a nest without any problem, for the broody hens, it is necessary to provide a separate nest, this, in case you want chicks.
For the litter of the hens, the crushed straw is ideal, remember to put under the cardboard, it allows you to clean the chicken coop even more easily.
Hens love to peck, they like to scratch the ground and clean themselves in a pothole, which is why an enclosure is ideal for the total happiness of the hens and for this it is necessary to count 10 m2 per hen minimum. The enclosure must be very well secured to avoid the intrusion of predators and to ensure the serenity of your hens, the structure of the enclosure at its base must be well reinforced.
After the well-equipped and organized chicken coop, you may wonder which breed of hen to consider?
Of course, for this question, everything will depend on what you want to do as breeding... Is it for eggs, for meat, to raise chicks, to recycle waste, to offer a fun activity to your children... According to these different reasons, so you will find the corresponding chicken breeds.
There are nearly 50 chicken breeds in France.
All breeds of hens are well domesticated, some are easier than others, more docile, so breeds like the Peking Bantam, the Silkie, are very familiar. On the other hand, for self-production, recycling of waste, the Peking Bantam will not be the ideal breed… For eggs, there are naturally more egg-laying breeds than others. Red, black or white hen, hardy breeds are good layers, we often speak of sussex hen, ash gray hen and cuckoo hen which lay well and early. The price of a hen generally varies between 10 and 20 euros…
Here you are, you now have a little more information for the installation and life of a chicken coop, it's up to you!
