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All About Chook Pens

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First I want to say congratulations on deciding to build a chook pen.
I will assure you its one of the best decisions you will ever make.
Most people don't know this but chooks are smarter then a lot of people given them credit for.
They are also very social animals and I can say from personal experience that you can form friendships with your flock.
But before you can start getting that flock together you need to build them a home.
A chooks home is called a chook pen or more often called a chook coop.
These chook pens are made to give the chooks a place to sleep and feel safe.
But most importantly its supposed to protect your chooks from predators and weather.
If a chook pen is the chooks home then the chook run is the chooks yard.
The chook run is where the chooks will get their exercise and sunshine.
Predators should be a big influence on how you build your chook pen.
For instance do you have a lot of burrowing predators? Then you should probably build the chook pen so that its about a foot off the ground.
If you don't have any burrowing predators but your area is instead infested with flying predators then you should probably close the top of the run with a clear roof if possible (I always just lay some chook wire over the top A lot of people build their chook pen proof of predators only to have their flocks die from the weather.
Chooks usually don't mind hot weather especially if you just give them plenty of water.
Of course if you live somewhere where you can cook eggs on the side walk then you should probably give the chooks some shade.
When I lived in Arizona I got my flock some steel roofing sheets.
For added measure you could get some refractive padding.
However chooks still need plenty of sunshine even in hot places and you will need to provide them with a source of light.
Some people will tell you to set up artificial lighting or even UV lighting though I don't.
Instead you should set up some windows facing the south so that light will steam in during the entire day.
The window should be sliding and with a proper screen.
Its important to figure out how big your flocks going to be before you build your chook pen.
Within the pen each chook should have at least a foot and half.
While outside of the pen each chook should have 10 square feet of room.
The inside of the pen will need some facilities.
The feeder and waterer can be inside or outside but the inside will need nesting boxes and a roost.
chooks want to sleep a couple of feet above the ground.
In the wild they sleep on branches in the pen they sleep on a roost.
A roost is usually just a plank of wood that nail to a wall in the pen.
The nesting box is where chooks lay their eggs.
The best ratio of nesting boxes to chooks is 1 nesting box for every 3 chooks (rounding of course if you have a number that's not divisible by 3).
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