Aside from deciding on a coop design, size and the materials you will use to build housing for your chickens, you’ll also need to ensure your chickens are protected. Protected from the weather as well as predators.
First you’ll need to determine which predators are potential trouble in your region. This might be a pack of [...]

My short article on building smaller coops to raise chickens in yesterday stirred quite a few questions, so I’ll try to elaborate on the difference between stationary coops and mobile chicken coops to help you make your decision on which to build.
Mobile Versus Fixed
A portable coop offers many advantages already discussed in my chicken tractor [...]

Rather than build a large coop for your flock of chickens, consider the growing trend of building smaller, portable coops – dubbed chicken tractor and chicken ark.
These smaller coops aren’t just for city folk hoping to keep a few contained chickens in their backyard – country folk with acres of land are also using them. [...]

“Hey City Girl, you got a heat lamp for raising those baby chicks?”
I wasn’t sure at first he was talking to me, that old farmer who’d just sold me 20 day old chickens, and whom I was walking away, from…
"A heat lamp for raising chickens? You mean I can’t just…"
That’s how it all started.
My education [...]

The simplest coop to build is a square building with one roof and two doors – one for you and one for the chickens.
Make the coop tall enough that you can stand easily for chores throughout the year.
Make it large enough for the quantity of chickens you desire, plus room to add a few more [...]

If you’ll be keeping laying hens in your chicken coop you’ll need a few more accessories than if you were raising meat birds. Meat birds don’t need nesting boxes, supplementary feeders or perches, but here is the list of the most basic requirements for your hens.
Chicken Feeders
A good chicken feeder in your chicken coop provides [...]