Building a cooperative is usually cheaper than buying one. If you don't have them, then it makes more sense to buy and there are plenty of good chicken coops for sale out there. This is one of the main determining factors for most. Building your own chicken coop will usually cost you about half of what you can expect to spend on a ready-made chicken coop.
That's if you buy all the new materials. You can do it for much, much less if you use recycled materials. If you do the project yourself, it's cheaper to build it. Otherwise, it comes down to how big the co-op you want.
Some large co-ops are cheaper to build than ordering kits. If you're going to do it yourself, it's cheaper to build a chicken coop from scratch. However, if your time and skills are limited, it is more cost-effective to purchase a kit and hire maintenance staff to assemble it than to hire a carpenter to build it. Knowing what to do (and what not to do) when setting up shelters for your backyard chickens will help keep birds healthy and comfortable as they settle in for the night.
Hens need some shade, so make sure that at least part of your chicken coop and run are located in a shaded area. Ever since raising chickens in the backyard has become such a popular pastime, new sources have appeared everywhere. Chickens are quite hardy and can tolerate temperatures below freezing, but prefer a warmer climate. To keep their chickens happy while minimizing the cost of building a chicken coop, many moms and chicken porridge let their birds go out into the yard during the day and tuck them into the chicken coop near dusk.
There are endless styles and configurations for chicken coops, because most aspiring chicken breeders choose to build their own, so they often freestyle. All you need to do is make sure it's safe and clean inside, add nest boxes, shelters, a track, a chicken door, mesh over the windows and proper ventilation, and you're good to go. In addition, wire floors do not allow natural nail wear and tear, so they can overgrow and make it difficult for chickens to walk. Or they can be big box-type chicken coops that you build yourself, which can be big enough for you to get in.
Not only for sick or infested chickens, but also for when you want to introduce new birds to your flock. If you live in an area with a lot of rain, don't put the chicken coop in a bare area because this could cause mud and make the chickens dirty. If you have a lot of chickens or have problems with predators stealing eggs, invest in an egg collector, which fits in the nest box and catches the egg, rolling it backwards for easy collection. Not all kits come with enough egg boxes, and if you're going to convert a shed or build a chicken coop from scratch, you'll need to install nest boxes anyway.
As long as you have a good set of plans, you don't need to be a master carpenter to build a chicken coop. Many people don't like to use pressure-treated wood in their chicken coops because chemicals could leak into the soil where chickens are scratched.
