Sunday, November 7, 2010

How to Make your Chickens Happy?

It is not a million dollar question. You can simply make your chicken happy by cleaning the coop regularly, an easier time for you and better overall results. You should do this process of complete cleaning of your chicken coop twice per year.

The Cleaning Process

You can clean easily twice a year if your chicken coop is designed properly. It really shouldn't be a huge chore.

You'll want to do a thorough job, when you do clean the coop, which means the cleaning process should include bedding material from nest boxes also.

Try to sweep up each and every loose material from all areas.

You should remove the waterers and feeders from the coop and clean it with perfect disinfectant. If possible dry them in direct sunlight before you put them back.

Regularly check the coop for dryness of litter material, which means you should avoid dampness. Dampness in litter is a precursor of all kind of chicken diseases. Periodically checking the nesting materials to make sure they aren't damp is important.

Some of the backyard chicken raisers don't prefer nesting materials inside the nest box. It is your personal choice. But if you use litter material inside the nest box, you need to make sure it isn't damp.

Do remember that chicken waste is an excellent manure for your composite, lawn and garden. Make use of it properly.

Completely disinfect the coop with proper disinfectants like Bleaching powder after completely removing the litter material. Make sure that you have rinsed everything really well and that it is dry before you let the chickens back in!

This whole cleaning process will hardly take 2 hours. I think you don't mind to spend this couple of hours for every six months to keep your chicken happily in the chicken coop.

If you want to see various designs of chicken coop available to build, please get into this e-book on " HOW TO BUILD YOUR OWN CHICKEN COOP".


Wednesday, October 20, 2010

How to Build Small Chicken Coops?



So,you need small chicken coop plans for your daily fresh egg. If so, this is right time to build your own chicken coop. You can get more chicken coop plans in different e-books. Just now I came across wonderful chicken coop plans for my backyard chicken. If you're interested, just peep in... Small Chicken Coop Plans

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Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Top Three Requirements for Chicken Coop Nest Boxes

Chicken coop nest boxes are top priority requirement in building a cheap chicken coop. This is an important place to collect fresh and clean eggs daily. The main requisites for a chicken coop nest boxes are-

1. Nest Boxes must be kept in a fairly dark and quiet area.

2. Nest Boxes must be kept dry.

3. they must be kept clean;

Saturday, September 18, 2010

Why should you have a Movable Chicken Coop?

Most of us are thinking to go for temporary structure instead of permanent structure especially for chicken coop. If you live in an area where hurricanes or tornadoes regularly threaten, mobile coops can allow you to keep your chickens safe.

You can have your chicken coop on wheels without any fuss if you have less space. More over, you can move the mobile chicken coop all over the garden, you can fertilize your lawn or shrubs with ease. Even cleaning the coop is also found to be easy as you can wheel your mobile chicken coop to the nearest water point.

Another reason you might want to consider a movable coop is you can watch the chickens at all time and also ask your children to take part in chicken coop rearing.

These are the main reasons why many people are now choosing movable chicken coop rather than standard larger ones that stay in one place.

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Snake in your Chicken Coop- How to Deal with?


Snake in a chicken coop is a BIG menace in the backyard chicken coop. Getting snakes out of the chicken coop is really a Herculean task. Here you can find three simple ways to get rid of snakes from your chicken coop.

1. Snakes are entering into chicken coop not for eating eggs as most of the snakes are not adopted for this action. They gain entry into the chicken coop for getting enough heat to keep their body warm as they are cold blooded aninal. You cansend the snakesaway from the coop by incremental increasing of the temparature of the room any fire hazards.

2. You can buy a ready made snake repellent Snake-Away, which is readily available in the market. This is most successful among the most of the chicken coop owners. This product is having a gel like substance which sticks at the bottom of the snake. This made the snakes to avoid the place of chicken coop to reside in the cool time of the day.

3. You can build your own snake trap to capture the snake.Take a long PVC pipe with 4 inches dia. The length may be as long as the snake you want to catch. Buy a cheap Funnel that perfectly fits into the pipe i.e the dia of the funnel should be more than that of the pipe dia. Cut the narrow end of the funnel and fix the funnel into the one end of the pipe using duct tape. With duct tape, tape the funnels to the pipe so that the skinny ends are sticking into the inside of the pipe.

Now place the trap where you think the snakes will go- Base boards or any where else. The snakes will get trapped into the pipe as they will not be intelligent enough to back up and lift its head to find its way back.

Have a Happy Snake-free Cooping!!!

Monday, September 6, 2010

Chicken Coop Vs Respiratory Disease


Are you having chicken coop? Then you should aware about the health risks which can affect your family. Yes!!! Our main aim to build a cheap chicken coop is to get fresh and nutritious eggs and chicken meat for our family. But the chicken droppings unattended in the coop may lead to respiratory disease both for the occasional handler as well as the person directly involved in the daily care of the bird.

There are two types of respiratory disease that affect the human beings viz., histoplasmosis and psittacosis (especially affect the daily bird handlers). The persons get infected by these fungi spores, which grow in the droppings. While cleaning the coop, the spores become airborne and infect the chicken coop cleaners.

Symptoms

If a person is infected with any of these diseases, they will develop respiratory distress, dyspnea, and symptoms of flu. If they haven't treated, the condition may progress and leads to pneumonia and death. The person infected with histoplasmosis will loss his eyesight.

Prvention
1. The simple technique to prevent this condition is to remove the chicken droppings daily i.e. when they are fresh. The spores will be developed in the dried droppings only.

2. Before cleaing the chicken coop, do mist the coop with a hose to minimize dust and airborne spores. It is always advisable to wear full-face respirator instead of dust mask as the former won't provide perfect protection against dust.

3. Disposal of chicken droppings should be made properly - Incinerating or burying the chicken droppings is highly recommended.

So, If you do all these, you will be adequately rewarded with hale and healthy body despite having a chicken coop in your backyard. Happy Cooping!!!!

Sunday, September 5, 2010

A simple design of chicken coop for predator proof

Are you a small poultry operators? Then you would be the usual victims of predatory birds. Yes!!! Then you should build a chicken coop of predator proof. The major poultry operators keep their birds most of the time in total confinement. That's why their chickens are not being attacked by the predators.

If your area is surrounded by most of the birds of prey like eagles and hawk, the best thing you can do is build a secure enclosure that can serve as the bird's free range area.

If there are birds of prey in your area, like hawks and eagles, then it is a good idea to build a secure enclosure which can serve as the birds’ free range area.

Predator proof chicken coop designs are mostly depends on your flock size, approximately three sq.ft.per bird. If you have 200 birds, for example, your pen size should be at least 30x20 ft in area.

The essential considerations you should keep in mind while keeping and caring for your chickens include adequate food supply, fresh water, clean chicken coop and secured roaming. In addition to this,you should build cheap chicken coop without spending too much of money in building chicken coop.

If you do all these, you'll be blessed with cheap, nutritious, and fresh eggs daily and chicken meat for your family during this period of economic recession.