Kids just love chickens. Mine happily spend hours feeding them, picking them up and patting them and collecting the eggs at the end of the day. Chickens are cheap to feed and easy to keep. Provided you have only hens they don’t make much noise and if you allow them to free range in the garden they will eat those nasty bugs that feed on your vegetables.

But before you buy some chickens you do need to think about housing them. You will need a good chicken coop to house your chickens. Let’s consider the ins and outs of chicken coops.

Of course you need to decide how many chickens you are going to have in your chicken coop. 3 or 4 hens is really quite sufficient to the average household, and if you are keeping this number than a simple portable chicken house that can move around the garden is quite sufficient.

There are also regulations in some places governing the keeping of chickens as well as the size of chicken houses and you should check this out first.

The fastest and possibly the cheapest way to get a chicken coop is to build it, provided you’re familiar with the right end of a hammer and you’ve got a few nails. It’s not that difficult, you need some treated timber, some chicken wire and a few bits and pieces and you can have a chicken coop built in an afternoon.

You some simple things in your chicken coop. One of these is an enclosed area, or a nesting box, for the hens to nest and lay their eggs.

At night chooks need to roost to sleep, so they need some perches above the floor of the chicken house to do so.

A simple A-frame design is quite sufficient, and it’s also important to provide the chickens with some rungs spaced from one side of the chicken house to the other off the ground for the chickens to roost on at night. It is better that this part of the coop be under cover.

If you put handles on one end of the coop and wheels on the other it’s quite possible to roll it around the garden every few days. Just put it where you would like some fertiliser applied, leave it for a couple of days and you have automatic fertiliser for the lawn.

You can always allow your chickens out of the henhouse during the day. Make sure however that they all return at night and the door is closed in case of foxes. Your chickens will clean up your yard of any nasty bugs.

Kids love keeping chickens and most of them love eating eggs, but remember that this basic work to do before you get started on your new hobby of keeping chickens. You’ve got to decide how many to have and either buy or build a good henhouse to house that number of chickens safely and uncomfortably.

All you have to do is get stuck into a simple handyman job building your chicken coop or buy a good one and then you can be comfortable knowing that you always have a fridge full of eggs.

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There’s so many reasons why keeping chickens is such a great hobby, and why chickens make such wonderful pets. You’ll never hear a chicken barking, and although a rooster crows there is absolutely no need for you to get a rooster. And kids love having chickens, I know my kids spend hours playing with the chickens.

And on top of that you have an added bonus. Eggs.

So many people consider exotic pets like ferrets, failing to consider that chickens make one of the best pets around. However before you tell the kids you’re heading out to buy some hens for them you need to consider where you will house them. You need a good hen house .

The henhouse needn’t be enormous. If you only have 3 or 4 hens then a modest size henhouse will house them admirably provided it has a nesting area and rungs for them to roost on at night.

A good hen house is easy to build. A large part of the chicken house is simply wire mesh, and building a chicken house is a simple matter of building a frame of treated timber and covering the frame with wire. It is usually unnecessary to have a floor on the house as it sits on the ground.

For a small number of chickens, say 3 or 4, it is not necessary that it be particularly large. For 3 or 4 chickens it’s perfectly possible to build a hen house with handles on one end and wheels on the other so that you can move around the garden. During the day most people allow the chickens to free range in the garden eating those pesky bugs that have been attacking your vegetables and flowers.

If the kids want chickens as pets then get them involved with you building a chicken house . It’s a great handyman project for you to do with the kids on the weekend. You should find plans to get houses on the Internet and it’s not particularly expensive or difficult to do.

So if you’ve been searching around for a great idea for a pet for the children and consider getting your own chickens. Spend some quality time with the kids showing in your handyman skills building a simple chicken house and you’ll have happy kids, happy chickens and lots of eggs for dinner.

Then all you need to do is learn how to make omelettes and you’re happy as well As the kids.

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