# Looking to buy chicken coop & bat house plans.



## mike8082 (Mar 12, 2009)

Hey everyone, so glad I found this place. :smile: I tried to post this in the classifieds forum, but I guess I don't have enough posts yet. So, here goes...

My son and I, and a number of my neighbors are going to be doing some building this spring. Each house hold is going to be building our own chicken coop, and bat house (a bat house is a place where brown bats sleep/roost). I've gotten together 10 of my neighbors, and I'd like to get roughly 5 chicken coop plans, and 5 bat house plans. So, about 10 plans all together. 

Anyway, I'm looking to purchase these plans from someone who could professionally draw these up for me. If this is something you could do, please send me a pm, and name your price. I know I can probably dig some plans up with some searching, but we'd much rather have some custom stuff drawn up.

Each of us have about 1+ acres of land out here in the sticks of Lancaster, PA so space won't be an issue. 

Thanks everyone!
Mike


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## GeorgeC (Jul 30, 2008)

First thing that we need to know is how many chickens is each chicken house going to house?

Same question for the number of bats.

Are the chickens going to spend all of their time in their houses or are you going to have an attached run? Do you want the hens to have a place to set and hatch eggs or are you going to collect all of the eggs? 

Do you need to get to the feeders and water stations from the outside or is it ok to go into the coops/pens? 

I assume that you have a local feed store where you will buy your feed. Have you talked to them about what you want to do. They can probably refer you to other customers who would probably gladly show you their setups.

Then of course there is this "modern" concept of free range chickens. (My grandmother probably did not there was any other kind but did not call it that.)

George

George


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## mike8082 (Mar 12, 2009)

George thanks so much for your response. I've attempted to answer your questions below:

First thing that we need to know is how many chickens is each chicken house going to house?

*Each chicken coop should be able to house at least 10 chickens.*

Same question for the number of bats.
*
Each bat house should be able to house at least 5 bats.*

Are the chickens going to spend all of their time in their houses or are you going to have an attached run? Do you want the hens to have a place to set and hatch eggs or are you going to collect all of the eggs? 

*The chicken coops should be designed with an attached run. We'd like to have 2 plans drawn up that would include a place to set and hatch. The 3 other plans would be for coops that would involve egg collecting.*

Do you need to get to the feeders and water stations from the outside or is it ok to go into the coops/pens? 
*
It is ok to go into the pens.*

I assume that you have a local feed store where you will buy your feed. Have you talked to them about what you want to do. They can probably refer you to other customers who would probably gladly show you their setups.

*We do have feed stores local. But we all agreed that we'd rather have some original, professional plans drawn up.*

Hope that helps, let me know what other information I should provide. We have the money in hand, and can pay via paypal or which ever works best for the pro.

Thanks again!
Mike


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## GeorgeC (Jul 30, 2008)

Do you not think that a feed store can produce professional plans? They may not have anyone on the immediate staff that designs, but they have access to people who do. When I owned Western Feed & Seed, Inc. I could go to the feed company and they could produce anything along the lines for chickens necessary. Now they probably do not have bat house plan access.

I would suspect that the feed store can offer you far more help than anyone on this forum, unless we have some chicken raisers here. 

Ten chickens would probably produce the eggs you need if the hens keep laying. However, I would go for 18 to 24 chickens just to be sure of the proper production. You will not increase the size of the hen house much.

If you google "chicken house plans" you will get lots of hits, but I would still discuss your plans with your feed store.

George


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## mike8082 (Mar 12, 2009)

Hey George,

The only thing the feed store could do was sell me a coop, but I wasn't interested in that. Not exactly sure where else I could go with this, any other recommendations if I can't find anywhere here?

Thanks,
Mike


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## WoodworkHelp (Apr 26, 2009)

Sent you a PM, but here's the link for everyone:
http://www.chickencoopsecrets.com

This site sells the plans, where to buy the materials, and tons more for $29.
I haven't used these plans...just supplying a possible resource.

So this way you can still get to build it yourself AND do it properly - put your neighbor's coops to shame


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## Tweegs (Sep 8, 2007)

Mike,
Chickens need about 2 sq ft. of coop space per bird as long as they have a run.
4 sq. ft. per bird if they are to be confined.

I'll send you a PM with a great forum to discuss chicken health, breeding, problems and general chicken newbie questions.

When it comes to coop construction questions though, you couldn't have found a better place.

Welcome aboard!


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## Sleeper (Mar 24, 2009)

There are lot of ideas for bat houses on the internet and I built one, but unfortunately they failed to explain how get the bats to move in. :blink:
 I finally gave up on the bat house and built a bird house and they are fully occupied.


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## frankp (Oct 29, 2007)

Bat house plans can be had all over the internet for free. I've seen probably 5 or 6 different plans in the last two weeks looking with my daughter. If I can remember I'll put some links up to some later.

Chicken coops I would suspect are fairly simple box houses with a couple of places the birds can get in and out, and maybe some sort of ledge they can walk on from what I've seen in movies (I've never owned chickens). Should be a pretty simple plan to develop. Do a google images search for chicken coop and lots of designs pop up that can be copied. They aren't plans, but they are simple structures to sketch some plans from if you have a (very) little bit of skill.


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## ecologito (Jan 27, 2008)

Here are some bat house plans:

Ducks unlimited Canada: http://www.ducks.ca/aboutduc/news/conservator/192/bathouse.html

Organization for Bat Conservation (great source) http://www.batconservation.org/content/buildyourown.htm

Good luck.


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## CNM Design (May 5, 2009)

mike8082 said:


> Hey everyone, so glad I found this place. :smile: I tried to post this in the classifieds forum, but I guess I don't have enough posts yet. So, here goes...
> 
> My son and I, and a number of my neighbors are going to be doing some building this spring. Each house hold is going to be building our own chicken coop, and bat house (a bat house is a place where brown bats sleep/roost). I've gotten together 10 of my neighbors, and I'd like to get roughly 5 chicken coop plans, and 5 bat house plans. So, about 10 plans all together.
> 
> ...


 
Hope this helps
http://www.batmanagement.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1150395126


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## JulieC (May 13, 2009)

Mike, 

Did you ever find any good plans? 

I've been working on putting together a website about chickens and chicken coops, but I am not able to find a whole lot of selection out there.

I would love to find a place that offered lots of different plans.

Julie C.


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