There’s no doubt that everyone loves pets, and most of us love eggs too. And there is a wonderful way to combine your love of pets and eating eggs together. Why not keep chickens?

It seems that all kids love chickens. I have kids and chickens and they spend hours patting them, feeding them and collecting the eggs. Chickens are relatively clean, easy to keep and cheap to feed, and if you only have been they don’t make a lot of noise. Let them free range and they will feed on all those nasty bugs in the garden that eat your flowers.

But before you decide that keeping chickens is a great idea and jump in the car to go by some you need to think a little bit about a good chicken coop , because you will need a chicken coop to house your chickens.

Of course the first thing you’ll need to consider is how many chickens you wish to house. If you’d like a box of eggs a day you’ll need plenty of chickens, however for most families 3 or 4 hens is sufficient. If this is the case a simple movable chicken house that can be trundled around the garden is quite adequate.

There are also regulations in some places governing the keeping of chickens as well as the size of chicken houses and you should check this out first.

The quickest way to get yourself a chicken coop is to buy one, however they are not that difficult to build provided you’re familiar with the workings of a hammer. Grab some treated timber suitable for outdoors, some chicken wire and a few essential handyman bits and pieces and it is not that difficult to build your chicken coup during an afternoon.

There’s some essentials when building a chicken coop, including a nesting box where the hens will lay their eggs.

As well as this you need some perches above the floor of the coop where the chickens perch to sleep at night.

A simple design that is easy to build is an A-frame design. You can make the perches by running timber rods from one side of the coop to the other. Make sure that the perches are under cover so the chickens are out of the weather when sleeping stop

If you put handles on one end of the coop and wheels on the other it’s quite possible to roll it around the garden every few days. Just put it where you would like some fertiliser applied, leave it for a couple of days and you have automatic fertiliser for the lawn.

There is generally no problem in allowing your chickens to roam the garden during the day, although it is important to make sure they have returned to the chicken house at night and to close the entry door. Even in the middle of the city it is possible to find foxes and foxes while a chicken for dinner.

If you’ve got kids they will absolutely love having chickens of their own, and will also appreciate the eggs to eat. But make sure, before you buy your chickens, that you do some research to establish what size your chicken coop needs to be to house the number of chickens that you are considering.

Get to work with that hammer, nails, timber and wire, build yourself a simple chicken coop and sit back to enjoy your omelettes.