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    Chicken DIY: 20 Fun-to-Make Projects for Happy and Healthy Chickens
    Chicken DIY: 20 Fun-to-Make Projects for Happy and Healthy Chickens
    Chicken DIY: 20 Fun-to-Make Projects for Happy and Healthy Chickens
    Ebook359 pages57 minutes

    Chicken DIY: 20 Fun-to-Make Projects for Happy and Healthy Chickens

    By Samantha Johnson and Daniel Johnson

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    About this ebook

    The popularity of egg-laying chickens is on the rise. Sustainable and fun, raising chickens is one of the most interesting and rewarding backyard hobbies you can find. In Chicken DIY, aspiring chicken farmers will find creative plans and easy-to-follow construction tips for making a safe and healthy environment for their fine-feathered friends. Veteran farmers and poultry enthusiasts Samantha and Daniel Johnson provide complete and easy-to-follow instructions for 20 essential projects, from coops and feeders to runs, ramps, roosts, and incubators. Clear step-by-step color photographs guide the reader through each hands-on project.

    Inside Chicken DIY

    How to prepare and build a safe and healthy environment for your backyard flock

    20 hands-on projects for chicken coops, roosts, runs, ramps, feeders, waterers, nest boxes, egg incubators, and more

    Clear step-by-step color photographs

    Overview of the basic tools and skills needed to complete each project

    Complete, thorough, and easy-to-follow instructions

    “Why DIY?” section explains the positive benefits and satisfaction of building things yourself

    Bonus chapter takes a fascinating look at the history of chicken-keeping and DIY chicken projects through history

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCompanionHouse Books
    Release dateDec 26, 2017
    ISBN9781620082270
    Chicken DIY: 20 Fun-to-Make Projects for Happy and Healthy Chickens
    Author

    Samantha Johnson

    Samantha Johnson es cofundadora de la Fundación Champions y los centros de desarrollo del Club de Campeones para necesidades especiales. Sam es miembro del personal del Equipo de Misiones de Lakewood y del Club de Campeones de Lakewood. Sally creció en Highlands, Escocia y estudió ilustración en el Edinburgh College of Art, antes de mudarse a Glasgow. A Sally siempre le ha encantado el dibujo y le apasiona la literatura y la ilustración infantil.

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    • 5/5
      Due out January 16, 2018DescriptionThe popularity of egg-laying chickens is on the rise. Sustainable and fun, raising chickens is one of the most interesting and rewarding backyard hobbies you can find. In Chicken DIY, aspiring chicken farmers will find creative plans and easy-to-follow construction tips for making a safe and healthy environment for their fine-feathered friends. Veteran farmers and poultry enthusiasts Samantha and Daniel Johnson provide complete and easy-to-follow instructions for 20 essential projects, from coops and feeders to runs, ramps, roosts and incubators. Clear step-by-step colour photographs guide the reader through each hands-on project.Available EditionsEDITIONPaperbackISBN 9781620082300PRICE $19.99 (USD)My thanks to NetGalley and Chapel Publishing for the ARC to read and provide my honest review!MY BOOK REVIEW:Okay, if you ever plan on raising chickens, this book is exactly what you need to get started. It is full of great ‘how to’s,’ pictures showing step by step building of everything you need. At the back of the book are recipes too.The hardest part may be cutting some of the wood to begin your projects. The book shows what tools you’ll need and how to put your project together. Everything a chicken needs is included.There’s even a section on candling, raising chicks, designing a dust box so your plants and gardens won’t take a beating… this is such a great book. When we start raising chickens next year, we’re buying this book!I love it and think it’s exactly what is needed!

    Book preview

    Chicken DIY - Samantha Johnson

    Introduction

    Happy chickens will make you happy, too!

    Welcome! We’re pretty sure that we know why you’ve chosen this particular book: you keep, or you’re planning to keep, a flock of chickens, and you also enjoy the idea of creating and constructing things. You’re definitely not alone—chickens are one of the most popular livestock options for small-scale and hobby farm operations.

    And why not? Chickens are generally easy to care for and inexpensive to keep, they can be raised in small backyards as well as on larger properties. The required infrastructure for a flock of chickens—housing, fencing, and feeding/watering equipment—is minimal and well within the reach of a DIYer who would like the satisfaction of building these items for him- or herself.

    That’s where this book comes in. Our goal is to provide you with a jumping-off place for a series of projects that can be put to good use in your chicken farming. From a portable chicken tractor and collapsible grazing pen to chicken creature comforts, like a wading pool and dust-bathing area, to a few projects that focus on fun, these projects aim to offer the reader a wide variety of directions to pursue.

    Feel free to follow our directions to the letter or modify aspects to your own liking. In many cases, the cost of project materials is quite low, and many of the projects can be made almost entirely from scrap materials that a seasoned DIYer might already have on hand (I knew that 2-foot piece of 2x4 would come in handy!).

    We hope that you find plenty of inspiration and help throughout the pages of this book. And after trying a few of these projects, you’ll end up with something to crow about! Happy building!

    In addition to the fun and satisfaction that comes from raising chickens, the potential for fresh eggs is a major attraction for many chicken owners.

    Looking for a wonderful project in which the whole family can participate? Why not keep chickens?

    Chapter 1

    Why DIY?

    The duties of a DIY chicken keeper are many, but the rewards are well worth the effort!

    Maybe you’re already a DIY enthusiast with a track record of producing some pretty awesome results around the house. Maybe you love the idea of creating helpful, useful items for outside your home, too.

    For many people, there are rewards to be found in constructing nest boxes and roosts and grazing boxes—satisfaction in the ability to be self-sufficient and enterprising as well as joy in the task of construction itself. But some people question the purpose of DIY projects. Hey! Why are you using scrap wood to make your chicken gear when you could just go purchase many of these items from a retailer?

    The answer will vary from person to person, but here are some common answers to the question Why DIY?

    Saving Money

    It goes without saying that if you can build something yourself from materials you already have sitting around, you can save a lot of money compared to going out and buying the manufactured version of the same item. Even if you have to purchase some or all of the supplies to build something on your own, it’s likely that you’ll still enjoy significant savings since you won’t be paying for someone else’s time (and price markup).

    You’ll find plenty of satisfaction in using your own skills and tools to produce quality equipment for your small-scale chicken operation.

    Doing it yourself can be a real money saver, and you’ll also have the ability to customize the projects to your own preferences.

    Of course, there’s a trade-off: you’ll need to invest your own time in each project, but if you’re thrifty and make good use of your materials, you might be able to complete several projects for very little financial output.

    Recycling

    As the saying goes, One person’s trash is another person’s treasure. Along with saving money, DIY projects can also save items from winding up in a landfill. Remember those leftover scraps of wood from building your chicken coop—the ones stacked up in the tool shed? Maybe they’re too short and oddly shaped to be of any use—or maybe they’re perfect for constructing a collapsible chicken run. What about that 5-gallon bucket that leaks and no longer holds water? Maybe it’s time to throw it away—or maybe it’s time to turn it into a nest box.

    The ability to take an item that was destined for the trash and turn it into something useful is certainly an appealing aspect of DIY projects. If you’re the type of person who likes to hang on to scraps for future use, DIY chicken projects might be the perfect way for you to put those materials to good use and save some money at the same time.

    Customization

    By taking the DIY route, you also have the ability to customize projects to suit your personal preference and needs. Let’s say your coop is custom-made or part of a larger building. Imagine the convenience of being able to construct nest boxes, roosts, feeders, and waterers to a very specific size or design—what a great benefit!

    Your happy chickens will thank you for your efforts, and you’ll enjoy the process, too.

    DIY projects are an excellent way to use up scrap materials left over from other projects. Don’t throw the material away—reuse it!

    Satisfaction

    While it might be easy to go down to the farm-supply store and buy a chicken feeder, you really can’t underestimate the personal satisfaction that comes from building things yourself. It’s vastly rewarding to visit your chicken coop each day and see your chickens using the items that you’ve built with your own two hands. It’s hard to put a price on satisfaction like that!

    Are You Ready to Start?

    By following the steps outlined in this book, you will soon be well equipped with an impressive variety of chicken-related products that will transform your coop and its surroundings into a chicken paradise. But as much as anything else, the projects in this book were conceived as inspiration for your own DIY ideas. While we certainly recommend that you follow the steps provided herein, we also encourage you to modify the designs to fit your individual needs, as long as you always keep your chickens’ safety (and your own safety) first and foremost in your mind.

    Important!

    Metric conversions for measurements in the projects are close approximations, so please double-check the measurements before obtaining materials for each project. Also, some measurements, such as 2x4 are common instead of actual measurements. In these cases, the metric conversions are based on the actual, rather than the common, measurements.

    Chapter 2

    Basic Tools and Skills

    Ready to do some construction? Great! But do you have the equipment and knowledge you need to complete the job? Photos, step-by-step directions, and cut lists are helpful, but unless you have the tools and know-how to put them to use, DIY projects can prove challenging. Here are some basic tools and skills you’ll need to create the projects in this book.

    Basic Tools

    At the start of each project, we’ll supply you with a list of the tools needed for that particular job. But, as a brief overview, here are some of the tools you’ll want to have on

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