You are planning to raise the chicken and make a chicken coop in your backyard, but the problem is you don’t know what should be inside a chicken coop. If you don’t have any idea of what materials you require inside a chicken house, your venture can fail. Thus you should have a clear idea of what a coop is, how to set its interior and what should be inside it.
However, throughout this article, we will explain all these details to make your chicken-raising journey more accessible and comfortable. So don’t waste time and keep reading.
What Is A Chicken Coop?
Simply the word coop means a structure for chickens where they can live safely. A coop is the chicken’s protective space where they can sleep, rest, and lays eggs peacefully. A chicken coop ensures a happy and comfortable life for your chicken. Thus, they can live longer and become more productive. To produce eggs or meat, you can safely keep your chicken in the coop.
How To Set Up Chicken Coop Interior
Before raising the chickens in your backyard, you first must set up the chicken flock’s home. The coop will ensure security for the chickens. The chickens will drink, eat, forage, scratch, talk, bathe, run and lay in the coop. So setting up chicken coop interior is very crucial. However, below we will discuss how you can set up the interior of your coop. So let’s start:
Step 1: Buy a Perfect/Suitable Coop
So, the first step is to purchase a coop for your chicken flock. Next, you require to decide the coop’s size, run, security and price. If you decide to raise many chickens together, you should purchase a larger coop. That means the larger chicken flock requires a larger cage.
However, you must consider many factors before buying a chicken coop. Now, which factors do you need to consider? To know this you can go through this comprehensive article, “What To Consider Before Buying Chicken Coops“?
Step 2: Set Up the Perches & Nesting Boxes
After purchasing the coop, you must set up the perches and nesting boxes. If the nesting boxes are unavailable or limited to your flock, you can consider adding more to your coop. At least one nesting box should be in your coop for every four hens. Also, to keep the chickens clean and away from their own dirt, perches are essential.
Step 3: Purchase The Absorbent Bedding
The bedding will layer the coop’s floor and the nesting boxes. Make sure the bedding is absorbent to soak in the waste so that you don’t require to clean the coop too often. Using wood shavings is the top bedding but using newspaper or sand is the worst bedding.
Some chicken owners like to layer their coops with wood shavings at the top and newspaper at the bottom because these materials are more absorbent. Moreover, cleaning the bedding of this material is also easier.
Step 4: Purchase Nesting Materials
Straw and hay are the crucial nesting materials that you require to purchase. The nesting materials will go inside the coop’s nesting boxes to cushion the eggs and chickens.
Step 5: Add Feeders & Drinkers To The Coop
Like all the above items, feeders and drinkers are also essential to the coop. If your flock size is large, you should choose the enormous feeder/drinker. A smaller one is enough for the small flock size. You can place the feeder in your coop’s inside or outside both.
Step 6: Add Extra Items
To ensure extra fun for your chicken, you can add chicken toys and sand tubs for dust bathing. Also, you can add the water tubs, treat bowls, other toys, etc.
What Should Be Inside A Chicken Coop
Nesting boxes, straw for the net floor, layer pellets, dropping boards, chicken Waterer and treat cages or feeders are the most important components that you should have in your chicken coop. Whenever you decide to build or purchase a coop, make sure all these items are available. The availability of all these components ensures more comfort for your chicken.
A well-planned chicken coop interior layout can offer the most comfort to your hens. However, for your chicken coop interior, you should consider at least the following items:
1. Nesting Boxes
Usually, the chicken lays eggs where they feel more comfortable. So, for your coop’s interior design, the nesting box is not a must-have item. But having a nesting box within the coop makes the hen’s egg-laying process much more manageable.
You may need to hunt down the eggs if you don’t have the nesting box. And the egg may be left under the bushes, on porches, or near the outbuildings. The lack of nesting boxes inside the chicken coop will require lots of time to hunt down the eggs.
For every 3-4 hens, at least a single nesting box is essential, and it’s a general rule of thumb. Larger boxes are required for the larger hens. So make sure you are choosing the right nesting box size and chicken coop bedding materials for your coop.
2. Straw For The Nest Floor
One of the top choices for the handlers is the straw for the nesting box’s floor. Different flooring options are available, and you can use anyone. But using straw for the nesting floor has different advantages, including the following:
- Chickens don’t try to eat straw
- It is extremely helpful for keeping the box clean
- The straw will successfully absorb moisture and will not stick to the eggs
As chickens will not eat straw or will not feel interested in it, thus there will be less risk of dropping or broking the eggs in boxes inside. Also, chickens will feel comfortable if you use straw in the nesting box because it is soft.
3. Layer Pellets
The natural layer pellet will help your chicken be naturally healthy and strong. Usually, hens lay eggs at 16-20 weeks of age. If you use a well-balanced natural layer pellet, you will enjoy the following benefits:
- Pellets are formulated in a way that will boost the immune system of your chicken
- Add antioxidants to the diet of your chicken
- Filled with minerals and vitamins, and all these are the healthy diet’s parts
Before choosing a layer pellet, do a little research and ensure it is well-rated and will provide nutrients to your chicken.
4. Dropping Boards
For cleaning the coop, the chicken keepers rely on the dropping boards as it’s the fastest way of cleaning the coop. Usually, chickens poop a lot. These boards are the practical shelves that catch the droppings.
Cleaning off the boards is much easier than cleaning up the coop’s floor. However, if you use the high-end dropping boards, then you require to clean them following the ways below:
- Use a knife and tap it to work great
- Put the droppings in using a bucket
However, you can also use the compost pile for placing the droppings directly into it. Both the DIY and commercial model board are available. So choose the best one and complete your chicken coop setup.
5. Chicken Waterer
Your chicken should drink fresh water all the time, and you should also ensure the freshwater supply. Either easy or complex way, you can supply fresh water to your chicken. Using a chicken Waterer is the best option, and it offers the following benefits:
- Easy to refill
- Multiple watering stations are available
- It’s effortless to clean
Usually, a giant chicken Waterer can supply water to 6 chickens for the entire week. Therefore, Waterer is the ideal solution for those who feel bored to change the water daily.
6. Treat Cages Or Feeders
Hanging feeders and treat cages are an easy and enjoyable way for the chicken to eat. And thus, if you include it in your coop, your hens will definitely love it. The cage keeps your hen’s food clean and away from the ground. You can easily place the vegetables inside a cage so your hens can eat them.
What Not To Put Inside The Coop
As a chicken keepers, you should understand that you can’t put everything inside your chicken coop because some things can harm chickens. On the other hand putting some things may be totally unnecessary.
By keeping the unnecessary things out of your coop, you can save money, time, and hassle in other ways. So, the things that you should avoid putting inside your chicken coop are the following:
- Exposed wires
- Shatterproof bulbs that are covered in Teflon
- Heating lamps
- Cedar Shavings
- Don’t place pine shavings on the coop floor
- Hen keepers etc
FAQs:
What do you put on the inside of a chicken coop?
You can put several things inside a chicken coop, including nesting boxes, straw on the floor, layer pellets, dropping boards, etc. Also, you can put the chicken Waterer, feeders, or treat cages etc. inside the coop.
What is the best thing to put in a chicken coop?
What is the best thing to keep inside your chicken coop depends on the need of your chicken. However, in general, nesting boxes, feeders, and dropping boards are the best things to put inside the coop
What are the 6 essentials for a chicken coop?
The 6 essentials for a chicken coop are the nesting boxes, layer pellets, dropping boards, feeders or treat cages, Waterer, and straw on the floor.
What is the best thing to put in the bottom of a chicken coop?
A dropping board is best to put in your chicken coop’s bottom. It is the best thing because it makes the coop cleaning easier.
Wrap up
So, optimistically after reading this guide, now you know what should be inside a chicken coop that will make your chicken happy and comfortable. Of course, over time, with the use of coops, you will learn more about them. However, you can add or remove different items to your coop to meet your hen’s needs over time.
Hopefully, the above-mentioned list will guide you with a good starting point of which item you should keep inside your chicken coop and which not. So, select and keep the item inside the coop and ensure your chicken flock is happy and comfortable with these things.
