subject: Building Your First Chicken Coop [print this page] I'm sure by now you've bought a batch of baby chickens from your local pet store or expo center and brought them into your home with joy and excitement. Everyday you've fed them and played with them and enjoyed just watching them chirp and make a mess of themselves.
For weeks you've sat there and watched them grow, but now you've realized that they are just too big to have inside your house in those empty milk cartons or fish aquariums that you were using to keep them in. You've figured it is time to build a chicken coop and I couldn't agree more.
The problem is you have a mesmerizingly, fully landscaped backyard in which you've poured in every last drop of sweat to grow and maintain and the last thing you want to do now is destroy your lawn by permanently building a chicken coop that will tarnish the aesthetics of your home and garden. At the same time, your small flock of chickens are growing and becoming way too large to keep indoors and since you've become quite attached to the little chicks by now, it would be much too painful to give them away. Well, the answer to your problems is quite simple...what you need is a Moveable Chicken Coop.
Build a chicken coop that is tall and has multiple long and high perches. Unlike large standard chickens which tend to hang around at the bottom of the coop due to their excessive weight, small bantams can easily jump up to the highest perches, giving your chicken coop plenty of space to keep more chickens. Build plenty of perches, nests and feeders so that the bantams can jump around from perch to perch and eat from any part of the coop.
Since it was an almost impossible task to actually lift up the coop with all its weight and relocate it elsewhere, my father came up with the genius idea of installing wheels to the bottom of the chicken coop so that it would be easily rolled to any destination in our yard. This idea was such a success in our everyday chicken raising lifestyle that from that moment on, every chicken coop we ever built was a moveable chicken coop.
Build it. It is now time to build a backyard chicken coop. You have done all your planning ahead of time. You have chosen a terrain convenient to maneuver around with excellent sunlight and free from predators. You have sketched out your chicken coop design on paper and you have gathered all your materials. Now all you have to do is put it together.
Be aware of injured bantams. For some strange reason, I have had many of my bantam chickens get eaten alive by the other bantams. This may sound absurd but it is true. Chickens tend to peck at each other at times and if they draw blood, the other chickens will begin pecking at the blood and eventually killing off the innocent chicken. This is why you should remove any chicken that you notice has been pecked or injured and keep it in its own cage for a week until it heals.
Just simply roll your moveable chicken coop to another location in the yard where it's most fitting. Even if a major hurricane threatens your area, with a moveable chicken coop, you will easily be able to roll it to a safer position such as your garage if you have the space, or even inside your barn if you live in a farm house.
