Chicken Pen Plans
If you are keeping chicken as pets you need not be deterred by the high cost of a prefabricated chicken pen. 
With a little bit of do-it-yourself skills and appropriate chicken pen plans you can build a chicken pen in your home and save a lot of money in the process.
While you are searching for chicken pen plans it will be good if you keep the following points in mind. Consider these to be the most important elements of a chicken pen since these are important for the health of your chicken as well as for optimizing egg production.
The size is crucial because your hens are likely to be in the coop most of the time. The pen should have adequate space to allow the hens to sleep, move around comfortably and nest. That makes it crucial for the chicken pen plans you are looking at to mention the number of chicken they have been designed for.
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The general rule is that one chicken needs roughly four to five square feet of space. In case you will be allowing the chicken a free run you can consider a smaller space per chicken. The run, in that case, should at least allow fifteen sq. ft. for every bird.
You will be required to clean the pen regularly. For this you should look for chicken pen plans that take into account the ease of cleaning. Chicken are particularly vulnerable to a tine spider like parasite known as the Red Mite. Infested chicken suffer from excessive feather loss and the mite is capable of causing a lot of discomfort to the infested chicken. Ease of access to the pen is thus crucial and chicken pen plans that address this problem, particularly those that allow dual access, are better than those that do not.
Another feature that you must look in chicken pen plans is that they should be secure enough to protect your chicken from predators. Predators like foxes are very skilled in deception and can even make a tunnel get into the pen. This can be ensured with a mesh fastened to the bottom of the pen or for a mesh extending below the bottom. The walls should extend right down to the bottom of the pen so as to not allow snakes to slither in.
Ventilation is as important a feature of a chicken pen as the ones discussed above. If your area experiences extreme cold conditions during the year, the chicken pen plans you look at must provide adequate insulation. While chicken can tolerate cold weather pretty well they need protection from extreme cold unless they freeze to death. Protection from rain is another feature that you must pay attention to.
Egg production declines in winters as the chicken hormones are controlled by their exposure to daylight. It has been observed that chicken do not start laying eggs again unless they are exposed to at least 12 hours of daylight. For this purpose there must be a provision for artificial lighting if you want to have a continuous supply of eggs. Proper artificial lighting will also provide adequate heat in wither months.
You will come across many chicken pen plans on the Internet but the ones that address these issues are the ones that you should prefer.
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If the answers to the above questions are a big resounding “YES”, then you should check out Building a Chicken Coop Guide.
This essential guide reveals great chicken coops designs and plans that will promise to save you tons of money and yet draw the envy of your fellow chicken farmers now…