Why Do Chicken Coops Need Roosting Bars?

It is a chicken's natural instinct to fly up off the ground at night to keep away from predators. Normally chickens will go back into their chicken coop at night of their own accord. There was one occasion where we must have shut the door to our chicken coop in the morning without realizing, so when I went to shut them up I found that they were some on top of the shed, some on top of a fence and a couple up a tree (I'm not quite sure how they managed to get up there!). So I spent an interesting evening trying to round them up to get them back into their coop.

When they are in the coop, although they are perfectly safe in there, they still instinctively want to roost. When locating your roosting bars you need to bear in mind that a fair amount of manure will accumulate underneath. The most practical roosts are able to be removed from the coop during cleaning.

You can make sure that you locate your roosting bars appropriately by downloading chicken coop plans.

What Do You Need to Build a Chicken Coop?

When you are building a chicken coop you need to consider the needs of your chickens. So here are the essential elements of a chicken coop:

1. Your chicken coop needs to protect your chickens from the elements. You need to make sure that your coop is waterproof and windproof.
2. It needs to be secure. Depending on where you live in the world there will be predators who will be keen to get their teeth into your chickens.
3. Your chickens will need ventilation in order to stop them getting too hot in the summer.
4. You will need to have roosting bars for your chickens to sleep on. They tend to prefer slightly rounded bars.
5. You will need a "pop-hole" - small door for the chickens to go in and out of your chicken coop.
6. Your chickens will need somewhere to lay their eggs, so you will need to provide nesting boxes that are sheltered and provide the chickens with some privacy.

I hope this gives you some ideas for building your own chicken coop. For more ideas on building a chicken coop you can download chicken coop plans.