Board & Batten: Custom Chicken Coop

• Epoxy floor makes clean up a breeze!
• A removable litter tray makes it much easier to keep your chickens cleaner and healthier.
• Adding an electrical package allows for added conveniences such as a heated water bowl to relieve you of the task of changing water several times a day in the freezing winters.
• Automatic doors provide extra safety for your chickens. Available in Electric or Solar.  Nothing is so devastating as forgetting to shut them up for the night and having a predator ruin your flock.
• Wheels - fertilize your whole yard without sacrificing the grass. Being able to move the chicken house easily keeps the grass healthier.

• Most coop guides suggest approximately 2 square feet of space per adult bird.
• At a bare minimum, the coop should be easy to clean, well ventilated but draft free, include clean watering and feeding stations, and offer adequate roosts.
• Good, natural light is a plus.
• Dirt floors can work where the soil is sandy and the drainage reasonable, but a wooden floor is vastly easier to clean and protect. We recommend our epoxy surface for ease of cleaning.
• Good bedding, such as sawdust (untreated wood only), wood shavings, or chopped straw is ideal.

• Chickens need extra grain to keep them warm and also to compensate for lack of grass and insects.
• Keeping the coop filled with the recommended amount of chickens helps keep the temperature comfortable.

Great layer of brown eggs. Good looking chicken. Good disposition.

Fat yellow chicken which lays brown eggs. Very docile.

Interesting black and white striped pattern. Decent layer of brown eggs and good disposition.

Fuzzy face, large chicken. Lays blue eggs! Good disposition, generally friendly.

Prolific white egg layer. Nervous and flighty, not as docile.

1. Table scraps are not a good solution for chickens. They do not provide the necessary diet needed to promote good egg laying and long life.
2. Only feeding on grass will usually also be problematic as necessary nutrition is not received from only grasses. Today's breed of chicken cannot survive on the same diet as chickens from 30 years ago.
3. Make sure wild birds do not have access to your chickens water and feed containers.
4. Chickens need twice as much water as they do feed. If you do not use an automatic waterer, change water daily and make sure there is always plenty available. Lack of sufficient water will take large tolls on the health of a chicken very quickly as they need water to digest food properly.

Most are successfully treated with products available from your local rural merchandiser and you should routinely treat the chickens every 2 or 3 months.

1. Chickens infested with red mites will stop or slow down laying eggs, hesitate to roost in normal area, and may become anemic.
2. Take a white tissue and wipe along the underside of perches at night when birds are roosting. Look for tell tale blood smears.
3. Check often as they multiply quickly and are hard to get rid of if caught after they become very evident.
4. For best results treat several times in the course of several weeks to get total control over the situation with a combination of wet.

1. Try to break the habit by removing eggs as soon as they are laid.
2. Keep her away from the nesting boxes for approximately a week.
3. Nest inserts can be used which cause eggs to roll away as soon as they are laid.

1. Keep poultry grit readily available at all times to help healthy digestion.
2. Try feeding her some oil and massaging several times a day to loosen blockage.
3. Garlic and natural yogurt can also be tried.

1. Can be caused by boredom. Add items for distraction: a head of cabbage, greens, or hang a Peck a Block in the run.
2. Overcrowding can cause pecking, keep flock at the recommended size for your house.
3. If one hen seems to be being picked on and blood is being drawn, she must be removed as blood only encourages more pecking. Anti peck products can also be applied to the picked on hen to try to break the habit.

Raccoons prey on chickens at night and sometimes during the day. They can reach through wire and will often pull the chickens head or legs off, through the wire. They also can tunnel under runs without wire flooring. Easy latches can be opened by raccoons.

Most dogs are natural predators and will find chickens very hard to resist. Even family pets, unless trained, will be tempted by your chickens. Most dogs will eat the chicken, leaving only feathers. Dogs can be trained to let them alone or even guard them. Some dogs will only chase or 'play' with them but the trauma can keep the hen from laying eggs for months.

Skunks tend to eat the eggs more than kill adult poultry but they have been known to do that occasionally also. Eggs will usually be crushed inwardly and chickens will have the head removed as the skunk wants to drink the blood.

Hawks will kill adult chickens if they are outside without the protection of a cage with a wired roof. Prey is killed with talons and torn into bite size pieces with the beak.

Venomous snakes can kill full sized hens but most snakes will go for the eggs. Keep the henhouse secure with no cracks or holes. Keep tall grass cut and do not have your henhouse close to compost piles or piles of logs or rocks, as these are snakes favorite hideouts.

Cats (even domestic pets) enjoy the thrill of the hunt and can prey on small chickens and chicks. They can be trained to see them as fellow pets however. Metal mesh, barbed wire picket fence and tall hedges with thick lower growth can deter them.

Opossum will eat the chicken feed, eggs, chicks and will attack chickens. Keep a strong cage and your chickens penned at night.

All of these enjoy eating chicken. Secure your chickens at dusk in a tight and strong henhouse to deter them. Large breed dogs are good to dissuade the animals from the property or at least to alert you to their presence.

rats, mice, owl, crow, squirrel, fisher cat, bear, mice, mink, weasel, lice, and mites