How to Build Chicken Coops: Everything You Need to Know

by Daniel Johnson, Samantha Johnson

Overview

Plan, customize, and build the perfect home for your flock, brood, or clutch.

Licensed by the National FFA Organization, our acclaimed series of How to Raise guides has helped countless first-time animal owners confidently care for their new companions. How to Build Chicken Coops provides complete, thorough, and easy-to-follow instructions on building a coop. More importantly, it provides answers so chicken owners don't have to waste time searching online for advice.

If you are involved in the FFA, interested in starting an urban or suburban hobby farm at home, or just curious about the country living or urban farming lifestyle, raising chickens is a great way to get started without a substantial investment of time or money. Building your own coop allows you to customize it to meet your needs—and it will save you money too!

How to Build Chicken Coops is not just a collection of plans, but a compendium of the background and insider information for chicken owners. How much space will you need? What is dust bathing? How many nest boxes and windows will your coop need? How much will it cost? What steps do you need to take to keep your chickens safe from predators?

All of these questions, and many more, are answered in How to Build Chicken Coops. This book takes the guesswork out of building a coop that's just right for your flock of chickens.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780760347331
Publisher:	Voyageur Press
Publication date:	03/25/2015
Series:	FFA Series
Pages:	176
Sales rank:	394,406
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 9.90(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Samantha Johnson (Phelps, Wisconsin) and her brother, Daniel, have collaborated on a number of rural-living guidebooks, including How to Raise Rabbits and Beginner's Guide to Beekeeping. Both are 4-H alumni and live on the family farm, Fox Hill Farm, in far northern Wisconsin. Samantha is a certified horse show judge and raises purebred Welsh Mountain ponies and Dutch, Holland Lop, and Netherland Dwarf rabbits.

Daniel Johnson is a professional photographer who specializes in imagery of farm life. He is the author of the 4-H Guide to Digital Photography and the coauthor of The Field Guide to Horses. He lives on a family-owned horse farm in Phelps, Wisconsin, called Fox Hill Farm (www.foxhillphoto.com).

Table of Contents

Introduction 6

1 Why You Need A Coop 14

2 Considerations Before Building 26

3 Designing Your Coop 54

4 Tools And Necessary Skills 84

5 Building The Coop 102

6 Adapting And Converting Coops 160

Resources 183

Index 186

Acknowledgments 190

About The Authors 191

Editorial Reviews

09/15/2015
So you've decided on raising chickens, which means you've got to figure out where to put them. One great place to start is this manual by sibling coauthors Samantha and Daniel Johnson. The duo has a number of introductory farming and animal husbandry books to their credit, some, such as this one, with the National Future Farmers of America (FFA) Organization logo. The instruction is friendly, and illustrations show teens doing construction. The weight of the book is focused on planning, materials, tools, and special considerations of weather, predators, etc. For all the instruction, however, there's only one coop design, which provides a great foundation for all the necessary elements for the best coop for your flock. For variety, you'll need to find other sources. VERDICT This book is ideal for high school students or adults who need an introduction on raising chickens and coop building. Pair it with Chris Gleason's Art of the Chicken Coop or Kevin McElroy and Matthew Wolpe's Reinventing the Chicken Coop.

Library Journal