Raising Chickens For Dummies, 2nd Edition

Chapter 5

Choosing Your Housing Type

IN THIS CHAPTER

Understanding the essentials of chicken housing

Exploring various types of housing

Choosing a type of housing to suit your needs

Unless you live in the middle of nowhere and turn your chickens loose to fend for themselves, you need some kind of housing for your chickens. Many years ago, every farm had a chicken house. It was generally a long, narrow building with windows on the east or south side, a door for the caretaker, and a smaller door allowing the chickens to come and go at will. Sometimes the small door opened into a fenced area; other times, the chickens roamed the barnyard.

Perhaps your property has an old chicken house or a shed or barn that you can convert to chicken housing. If you’re lucky enough to have one of these structures, you may not need to do much to provide housing. But if you’re like many people who’ve developed the urge to raise chickens, you need to build or buy chicken housing before you can begin chicken-keeping. First, you need to decide what kind of housing suits your needs, and your options are many.

One idea you probably don’t want to pursue is to keep chickens in your house. Chickens simply ...