If you’re considering raising chickens and doing it profitably, then the cost of building your chicken house should concern you. You’re already going to be spending money on the purchase of chickens, chicken feed and other operating materials, so in order to get into the profitability mode quicker, you need to reduce your construction costs for abuilding your chicken coop. The lower the costs, without affecting the health and safety of your chickens, the better. Here are some quick tips for how you can build a cheap chicken coop.
First, start by having a complete materials list before you start any construction. Go ahead and “shop” for your materials, which actually is the first part of your planning. Withouth a complete materials list, which will include the many types of options you would want to incorporate in your chicken house, you are setting yourself up for higher costs, over budget and a less prfofitable enterprise. When you research and shop in advance with a complete materials list, you will have a much better idea of your actual costs. Here’s an extra tip, when shopping for materials, asks your sales person if any of the items you’re looking for are going on sale in an upcoming ad. Many sales people will gladly let you know if the item is going on sale on the next ad, next week, etc.
Another benefit to having a solid plan with an accurate materials list is that you will have little or no waste at all of building materials. Many folks buy way too much materials and have all sorts of lumbar left over after the chicken house is finished. This is wasted money and wasted profits.
Another tip - don’t buy tools that you’re only going to use once. First, see if any of your friends, family or neighbors might have the tool that you can borrow. If not, check with your local tool rental company. There’s no sense ni purchasing that $500 table saw that you’re only going to use for this project if you can borrow your neighbor, Ralph’s saw. There are no particular special tools needed to build your own chicken house, so ask around and keep the cost of your chicken coop down.
Finally, consider recycling of some of the old materials that you may already have around your home, garage or farm. For example, many folks use different materials for the floor of their chicken house, such as soil, sand or sawdust. These may be readily available around your house, or offered free elsewhere. Does your local lumbar yard cut larger peices of wood for its customers? Find out what they do with their sawdust — you may be able to collect it for free for use in your chicken house. Look around your home, garage, etc., and see what you have that could be put to good use in your new chicken house.
Finally, how many chickens are you thinking of raising? If you’re only raising chickens to have a nice supply of fresh eggs for your family’s breakfast table, then you could get away with only two or three chickens. Right off the bat - you’ve cut the costs of your chicken coop because you won’t need to build a large coop to house your chickens when a much smaller chicken house will do fine.
Keep these tips in mind when you’re planning to build your chicken coop and you’ll come out way ahead in the pocket book, even in profits. If you don’t have a complete set of designs with accurate materials list, I strongly recommend the book that you can get here:
