Tommy Jacobson - Chicken Coops: Beginners Guide to Planning and Building Your First Chicken Coop to Become Self-Sufficient

Chicken Coops:

Beginners Guide to Planning and Building Your First Chicken Coop to Become Self-Sufficient

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Table of Contents

Authors Foreword

Chapter One: Essentials of Chicken Coops

Chapter Two: Equipment and Location

Chapter Three: Building Your Coop

Chapter Four: Two Sample Chicken Coop Plans

Chapter Five: Raising Your Chickens

Best Practices & Common Mistakes

Conclusion

W hen health is absent, wisdom cannot reveal itself, art cannot manifest, strength cannot fight, wealth becomes useless and intelligence cannot be applied. Herophilus

00% free range, this is the label on the eggs that I was about to purchase on my recent trip to the market. All natural is becoming the rage these days on the healthy lifestyle trend. The problem is, despite my best efforts of choosing these ingredients, they are either more expensive than their mass-produced counterparts or I end up being suspicious if they are really free range. I end up buying these more expensive eggs and at the back of my mind; I think if they are the real deal.

I have watched several documentaries and read several articles on the Internet on how large-scale poultry farms are becoming more and more hazardous to our health. Several years ago, there were outbreaks of different kinds of epidemics that are related to birds, those stories made me even more worried. A recent trip to my relatives in the country gave me the answer I needed.

In their backyard are several chicken coops. They had more than 20 chickens in their care. Every morning I see my aunt carrying a basket and when she got back, she was carrying more than a dozen eggs. I was completely amazed and excited about the prospect of having my own ingredients sourced from my own home.

This is how my journey towards self-sufficiency began and I want to share with you the mistakes I made and the lessons I learned along the way. Let me say that it will not be a walk in the park. Planning to build a coop is one thing but actually building it is another. Planning to take care of a few hens is one thing and actually having to do it on a daily basis is another.

At the same time, let me say also that when you collect your first egg, it will be all so worth it. When collecting eggs early in the morning becomes part of your daily habit and you enjoy the freshest ingredients at your breakfast table, then every sweat and effort you put towards the chicken coop will be forgotten.

Ready to build your first chicken coop? Start now!

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O rganic farming appealed to me because it involved searching for and discovering natures pathways... Elit Coleman

I n this chapter, I will help you learn about the:

• What are Chicken Coops?
• What are Coops Used For?
• What is the Coop Trend All About?

C hicken coops or hen houses are becoming one of the answers to self-sufficiency and food independence. This is a building of varying scales, sizes and designs. Domesticating chickens has been done thousands of years ago. While it is still debatable on which region chickens were first domesticated, there is evidence of domesticated chickens from India, Thailand and Vietnam in Asia all the way to Egypt, Greece and the rest of Europe and the Americas.

Fast-forward to the modern day, domesticating chickens has been raised to the next level through the construction of chicken coops. It is a building that is meant to house female chickens or hens. Inside the coop are several partitions, called nest boxes, where hens can lay their eggs. Perches are also installed inside so that the hens can sleep.

I t is important to differentiate the purpose of chicken coops with other poultry raising constructions or buildings. The major difference is while poultry raising is aimed towards harvesting the meat of the chickens, the coop is only meant for harvesting eggs.

This unique purpose dramatically changes the design and features of the coops compared to poultry raising projects. Since hens are meant to be kept for the long term, their protection is the main purpose of the coop. This means there will be considerations such as temperature, weather, ventilation and other similar natural phenomenon.

Another purpose related to protection is to guard the chicken against their natural predators. Your area will have its own set of animals, which can be prey on your chickens. This means that the design of your coop is relative to the kinds of predators in your area.

W ith the relative ease of raising chickens, harvesting eggs and the construction of chicken coops, the chicken coop trend has become widely popular. The reason for the popularity is because of another trend, the healthy lifestyle. More and more people are now becoming more aware of their health and the relation of the food they consume. There is now a premium on the source of the ingredients.

This is where the newest product of chicken coop trend comes in; the backyard coop. Food products are now highly scrutinized on their sources. Consumers now prefer food items that were either produced or raised as close to natural means as possible. For example, vegetables that are free from pesticides, meat that was raised free range and similar techniques are considered better than mass-produced or chemically altered counterparts.