How To Build Your Own Chicken Coop

How To Build Your Own Chicken Coop 30-6-8 If you've ever thought about putting a few chickens in your back yard, here's a book that'll show you how to put up a chicken coop that looks good and works with any size flock. "Chicken Coop: 45 Building Plans for Housing Your Flock", by Judy Pangman takes a look at 45 different chicken house designs. They include everything from a setting hen hut (capacity of one hen) to a cordwood chicken house (16 hens and one rooster) to several of Joel Salatin's housing systems, including the Feathernet unit (1,000 laying hens on pasture). Also covered are hoop houses, A-frames, converted sheds, mobile units, and pastured poultry models. Many of the structures are on wheels or skids. There's even a cotton trailer coop that holds 250 hens, 50 nest boxes, and 12 roosts. Cezanne's Garden Coop has an intentionally sagging roof, lopsided windows and crooked door. It looks like a playhouse built by an elf. The San Miguel coop is little more than a 6-ft. high steel and stone monolith filled with more than a ton of gravel, and three "henhouses" that appear to be horizontal barrels. They're really 14-in. ductwork and function as nest boxes. The plans in the book are really more like sketches than blueprints. So you'll need some construction experience to convert the ideas into reality. The book sells for $19.95 plus S&H. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Chicken Coops, Storey Publishing, P. O. Box 206, North Adams, Mass. 01247).

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