Whilst attempting to keep hens can potentially be a fantastic activity for the family, and whilst I personally consider that chickens make wonderful pets, there are some disadvantages to always keeping hens as well as positives.

Whilst trying to keep chooks can potentially be a fantastic activity for the household, and whilst I personally consider that chickens make wonderful pets, there are some negatives to managing hens as well as positives.

Lets think of the possible benefits first. Certainly the most important plus to keeping hens must be all those tasty free range eggs just lying there waiting around that you just collect every afternoon or evening. You’ll find nothing like cooking your own healthy, and delicious free range eggs which were laid on that day simply for you. No chooks needed to put up with living in a tiny crate to lay them for you personally, so you should feel great about getting a refrigerator crammed filled with wholesome food.

Next chickens make superb domestic pets despite the fact that they are fowls. Kids really adore them. Mine will happily pick them up and may carry them around for hours. It can be rather a joy keeping chooks, and if you permit them to roam free all around your back garden it is gratifying watching all of them out your kitchen’s windows when you cook an evening meal.

In addition, if you make it possible for all of them to roam around around the house they will really clean up a whole bunch of pests which, if still left on their own, could possibly eat your back garden. It was our chooks that assisted save our backyard from 2 summers of hopper plague. You really should see how many grasshoppers one hen could certainly consume daily.

Fourthly it’s pretty simple, not like for most domestic pets, to provide for your chooks so that you don’t need to make plans for them every time you go on holidays. As I have large automatic storage containers for feeding and supplying water we are able to go on trips leaving behind the chickens to their own devices and have never ever lost one yet, whilst on trips.

Now to the negatives. Like all animals chickens can easily get sick and die. We have had instances when the kids have discovered a dead hen in the chook coop, and this is distressing for the kids. While this obviously is applicable to all domestic pets it is more common when you keep chickens. This obviously is simply because you have a tendency to have quite a number of hens, whereas most people will have one or at most two dogs or pet cats. In our situation with fifteen hens it is more frequent. Of course hens have a shorter life-span than some domestic pets such as puppies or cats.

Secondly despite the fact that chickens will pick up many of the unpleasant bugs around your back garden they do so by scratching, and this can potentially scratch up the dirt of your yard beds. They will also peck at your fruit and vegetables if you grow your own and they especially adore pecking at tomatoes. You will need to safeguard your veggies or some area of your garden.

Thirdly, like for many other pets, there is some work involved, including regular cleaning of the chook house. Chickens poo everywhere and the house, as well as feeding and watering containers, needs to be washed. You will also need to learn more about pest avoidance as chooks may be susceptible to such problems as mites.

Fourthly while getting fresh roam around eggs is great it doesn’t occur all the time. Chooks can go off the lay throughout the chilly winter months, and older chooks lay less eggs than young ones. For this reason there can be times when you find yourself paying for chicken feed but still buying eggs.

I consider however that the advantages of maintaining chickens far outweighs the disadvantages. They are one of the few family pets that are productive as well as just being a pet, and for anybody considering maintaining chickens as pets my answer is always to go for it. Very few folks have regretted getting chickens.

Remember to visit my website about chicken coops to find out more about how to choose the best chicken coop for keeping your chooks happy.

Peter has a website all about Chicken Coops where you can get more advice about finding a great Chicken Coop to keep your chooks healthy and happy and laying eggs

Post from: Pets On The Blog

Chooks: The Pluses And Minuses Of Keeping Chooks

Chickens are indeed a wonderful family pet but they are much more besides. By raising chickens you will benefit from scrumptious freshly laid eggs, help with pest control, natural fertilizer and if you wish, a very tasty and healthy meal. But ow can you be sure that your chickens are happy with their lot? Let’s take a look at the ways you can make their life as comfortable as possible with little effort and without breaking the bank!

Feeding your chicken the right food is important. Chickens need a good quality chicken feed, calcium (oyster shells are good for this)) and grit although a lot of chicken will feed will include the calcium and grit. Speak to the folk in your local feed store and they will advise what’s best for your breed and age of chicken. Some people who are raising chickens prefer to feed them with food from their own kitchen but for beginners a commercial feed is easiest and simplest as it ensures your chickens are getting the best range of vitamins and minerals. Chickens do love clean water for drinking so make sure to give them fresh water every day.

It is equally important that your chickens have a coop that is adequate in size, layout and position. You coop should be built or bought in mind to give 2-3 square feet of space for each chicken. So it’s a good idea to buy or build a coop bigger than you need in case you later decide to raise more chickens. There should be a 2 inch thick perch positioned around 10 inches off the floor. Allow for about 10 inches perch space per chicken. Its important to remember when raising chickens that they must feel safe. Chickens do stress quite easily. This can seriuosly affect their health. If the coop is located off the ground then you are giving your birds much better protection from predators especially those who might burrow underground to get to your chickens. Chickens will go inside the coop at dark of their own accord but don’t forget if you need to also close the coop door to protect them from predators. If so you will also need to remember to open it in the morning.

The coop must be warm, dry and cleaned frequently. Make sure the material that the coop is made from will stand up to the weather. Depending on where you live you will have to think about ventilation and heat. When raising chickens in warmer countries you may have larger doors and slider windows. For colder countries, smaller windows and doors and insulation might be necessary. It is not advisable to have a felt roof as it can be breeding ground for mites. Build or choose a coop that allows you easy access to clean the coop regularly.

Chickens love to scratch about. By building a chicken run your chickens will have great freedom and will be happy to scratch all day looking for bugs and insects! They will eat however eat your grass so don’t place them in your prize winning lawn but on the flip side they will eat all your weeds, insects and bugs! Each chicken should ideally have 3-4 square foot of space to run about in.

About the Author

For lots of chicken raising tips, tricks and secrets visit http://www.chickendiyguides.com .

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Are you raising Chickens? Here’s how to keep them happy and healthy!

All around the world people are looking to keep chickens in their backyards. But when just starting out most people encounter the same problem, purchasing a coop to keep their chickens can come at a pretty high cost. The majority of us can’t afford to throw money away in these current difficult times so we are all looking at cheap options for everything – including chicken coops and runs. The good news is that I’ve found a way of building your chicken coop while keeping the costs within any budget. So now for a fraction of the cost of buying a coop you can build your own.

I know what you’re thinking, it’s going to take a lot of work to build a chicken coop, and you’d be right. It does take a lot of work, but it is FUN work, and the rewards are worth it. You’ll have your own coop customised to your needs, you’ll be saving a lot of money too. Building you own chicken coop will cost around half the cost of purchasing a pre-built coop. So if you want to save money and you’re up for a challenge then you need to consider building your own cheap chicken coop.

How can you get started? Well you need to decide how many chickens you’re going to house in your coop, obviously. The more chickens, then obviously the bigger the coop is going to be. When it is time you can grab a resource that will guide you through the whole process of building your own hen house. These guides are relatively inexpensive when you pick them up from the Internet.

Once you have a guide, then it’s just a trip to the store to get the necessary materials. The good news is that usually the good chicken coop guides will tell you exactly what you need. AND they’ll tell you exactly how to go about building it… every step, from the first nail to the last. It doesn’t get any better than that.

If you’re still not sold on the idea of building your own coop, then here’s something that might. The general cost. If you bought a medium sized coop that is pre-built then you could expect to pay anywhere from $800 to $2000, but if you built a medium sized coop instead, then you’re looking at purchasing the required materials for $400! Plus the cost of the guide, $30. Total cost = $430. If that takes your fancy then pick up the required chicken coop guide, purchase the materials and build your own customised chicken coop.

About the Author

There are lots of other ways to keep the costs for your chicken coop manageable. For more information and helpful hints drop by my site right here => http://www.squidoo.com/buildingchickencoopsguide

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Cheap Chicken Coop Building With a Limited Budget

When you are looking for a large chicken coop, there a several important things to take into consideration,before you decide on a design.By following a few simple steps,you will save yourself a lot of time and money and get to a much quicker result.

Steps For Choosing A Large Chicken Coop.

Step 1: Consider How Many Chickens To Have You will certainly need a large chicken coop if you are going to have more that ten chickens in your coop. This is the one occasion where ‘Size IS Important’, the larger your chicken coop, the more content and comfortable your chickens will be and therefore the more eggs you will obtain.

Step 2: Take Your Climate Into Consideration Things to consider here are temperature and type of climate you are living in. This will determine how hot your large chicken coops may get because chickens don’t really lay too well in extreme temperatures. You will have to consider ventilation factors into your chicken coop. Also, will there be enough shelter from rainy conditions?

Step 3: Will You Be Moving Your Chicken Coop Occasionally? Some people prefer to be able to move their large chicken coops around so they are easier to clean.This works better with a smaller number of chickens than a larger number.But it should be taken into consideration just the same.Ideally you will find a manual that will give you multiple choices as to the size and maneuverability of the type of chicken coop you will require.

Step 4: Budgetary Considerations. Cost is always a factor to be considered when choosing the right chicken coop for your environment. Certainly, if you are on a limited budget,there are some tips and tricks that you could use that may even permit you to build your chicken coop for free! It depends on the type of materials you are considering and focusing on economical building alternatives.

In actual fact there are a few websites that offer complete (low cost) manuals on this entire process,whether you want to have large chicken coops or small more portable ones,there are some excellent plans available.

The best thing to do when looking for these websites is to use a search term that is enclosed in quotation marks similar to this example: “large chicken coops”, this will have the effect of narrowing your search down to a more specific level. When we conduct a search in a standard way without the quotation marks we are telling the search engine to give us results based on each and every word individually,this is why you cometimes get bake millions and millions of results.

About the Author

Rob Hillman is a Chicken Coop enthusiast. For more information on Large Chicken Coops please visit http://urbanchickencoops.blogspot.com/

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Large Chicken Coops – How To Choose The Right One!

Building a chicken coop can actually be a lot of fun, and is a great activity to share with the kids or grandchildren. However, constructing a quality chicken coop is not as easy as building a wooden box and putting in place some chicken wire. Their are quite a few things that you need to take into consideration to do it the right way, and here are three tips to make sure that you make the best chicken possible to satisfy your needs.

1. First of all a chicken house needs to be well protected from the weather. This means that you are going to need to insulate the coop in order to keep your chickens warm during the winter. In addition to insulation you need to make sure that the top and sides are well protected from water damage, as this can lead to your chickens becoming sick or contracting a disease.

2. You must also protect your chickens from predators. Their are opportunistic predators such as coyotes or foxes running around. Even a hungry dog would be likely to try and eat chickens. The best way to protect your chicken house from these types of predators is to make sure that you have the wire going down into the ground at least 18 inches all the way around when building a chicken coop. This will make it nearly impossible for any predator to successfully break in.

3. Make sure you include plenty of light and air flow within the coop. Just like any other animal chickens need a consistent flow of oxygen in order to grow and stay alive. In addition light is also very healthy for the animals so make sure that your chicken coop had plenty of lighting. Often times people neglect these two vital factors and this design a poor chicken coop.

These three tips should start you on the right track to building a chicken coop. However, their are many other things that you need to do in order to build a quality house for your chickens.

See Exactly How I Go About Building A Chicken Coop That Will Keep Your Chickens and Eggs Safe And Let Them Prosper!

Visit The Best Chicken Coop Website For Instant Access!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Matthew_Lord

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Building a Chicken Coop – 3 Things You Need to Know