We have decided to raise our own chickens and produce our own eggs. Much better than store bought eggs anyway. There are a few considerations to look at before we settle on our chicken house design. Depending on where we live will dictate the style of chicken keeping we can do. In some residential areas there are limits to the number of chickens you can keep.
Some suburbs have a total ban on keeping chickens. If you do have chickens in a residential area you will subject to the laws of any other pet. Just as neighbours don’t like a barking dog, they don’t like either to be woken at dawn by a crowing rooster or excessively noisy chickens. If your chickens are close to a neighbours fence they may object to the smell also.
If you are in a rural country area you will have other problems. If your chicken house is not secure you will get unwanted visitors during the night. Dogs and foxes can develop a taste for chicken and a dog will learn to suck eggs too. Because you have grains and chicken food around you will attract rats and mice and an occasional snake will sneak in for an egg or even a chicken.
Of course the two legged chicken rustlers can be a problem in some areas too so watch out for them. When your chickens are outside in the daytime keep them penned up with chicken wire over the top too because hawks and other birds of prey will carry off young birds for lunch.
Now we have a knowledge of the potential problems we can design our chicken house and pen. It is nice to have chickens running free and keeping your yard free from grubs and pests but do this while you are close by to keep an eye on them. Next get out the chicken plans and patterns and decide which one you like.
There are many designs you can choose from and all are as good as each other. It just comes down to personal taste now so choose away. Once you have decided you can start building and it will not take you long. The plans are easy to follow with simple step by step instructions so get started and you will soon be frying up your own eggs.
It is very difficult now to keep a good balanced diet. Supermarket food is so full of preservatives and our produce is far from fresh when we get it. There is a big swing back to the basics of home grown produce so we know that what we are eating is fresh and free form many of the horrible chemicals that are used now by so many food growers.
Another big plus is growing our own farm fresh eggs by keeping our own chickens. The whole process is not difficult and we can combine chicken farming with veggie growing to have each practice compliment each other.
The woodworking plans and patterns that are available make building our chicken house very easy. We just have to follow the easy step by step plans and we will soon have our chicken house up and producing. It is best to start with young point of lay chickens so they are just about to start laying.
Once the first few small eggs are out of the way we will get years of healthy eggs from our happy chickens. Cover the floor of the chicken house with a liberal covering of fresh straw to give the chickens something to scratch in and also to catch all the droppings. If your chicken house does get a bit smelly from droppings just dust the floor with lime every now and then and it will kill any odors.
We have eggs happening so check out the woodworking plans again and find some raised garden beds. These are for our vegetables and will be known as the no-dig gardening method. Imagine that, no more digging to produce our fresh veggies. Make the garden beds with lumber about 10″ high and the beds should be about 3′ – 4′ wide so you can garden without walking on the beds as this will compact the soil. Fill the beds with good quality topsoil and then top with the first batch of straw from the chicken house.
This straw should be changed every couple of weeks and will be full of chicken droppings that our veggie garden will love. As the straw breaks down into the soil we are replacing it from the chicken house so our garden beds are always covered keeping them moist and weed free. Just part the straw to plant the seedlings and when you harvest the veggies will be nice and clean and pest free.
So you have a couple of woodworking projects there which go hand in hand and will keep you eating healthy so get stuck in and get started.