January 14, 2009

How to Build Animal Housing: 60 Plans for Coops, Hutches, Barns, Sheds, Pens, Nestboxes, Feeders, Stanchions, and Much More

Since you've decided to raise chickens, you'll need a little house for them. Some people use the traditional shed style coop and some are using innovative designs such as the chicken tractor.

Carol Ekarius' book, How to Build Animal Housing, will tell you everything you need to know about building a coop. Whether it's big or small, this book has plans, sketches and dimensions for several different sizes of chicken houses. It also has 60 (yes sixty!) pages of basic construction including using a laser level, calculating lengths of rafters, installing windows, and basic electricity and plumbing. With no other training or experience, a reasonably handy person could build quite a nice structure with the information in this book.