Two more important components of your chicken coop are the "Roosting Bar" and "Manure Box". Housed chickens do not sleep in nesting boxes, or on the floor of their chicken coop, they sleep shoulder to shoulder on an elevated roosting bar at night. This bar actually assimilates a tree limb. Chickens that roam free, such as in Key West, Florida, instinctively know they can better protect themselves from predators up in a tree on a limb at night. The same concept holds true for your backyard flock utilizing their night roosting bar inside their chicken coop.

The roosting bar is a simple solid dowel, about 1.5" in diameter, that is secured in place, usually opposite the side of the nesting boxes. Allow 6"-10" width of roosting bar space per hen. Our roosting bar is positioned 2'8" high from the chicken coop floor. Depending on your chicken coop design, you might want to vary the height up or down a bit. You want it to be comfortable for your hens to perch on. Underneath the roosting bar is the manure box.

The manure box is a beautiful thing. It is situated directly below the roosting bar, filled with bedding, and a moveable screen lid. This screen lid should be made of durable half-inch wire mesh.

Most of your chicken manure droppings will fall to the manure screen lid and box during the night. It is almost like a "cat litter box", but an equivalent concept for chickens. I skim the screen and bedding with manure from the box, and take it to my nearby compost pile, along with my kitchen vegetable scraps. The chicken coop is clean for the day. You can let the manure pile up, but I find it best overall to get it out of the coop and into the compost pile. Every month or so, I take the manure box top screen outside, and really hose it off, brush it down with soap and water and then let it dry throughly before returning it to the chicken coop.

I have seen chicken coop designs that allow you to access the manure box from the outside, with a closable shutter. My preference with manure boxes is to make sure they can be moved and are not stationary. You want to have access to this area, to throughly deep clean it from time to time.

I find that our chickens don't leave many manure droppings in their nesting boxes, or even the floor of their chicken coop. Manure droppings are mainly deposited in the manure box at night, and the outside pen during the day. I rotate my bedding to keep the chicken coop clean. Fresh clean bedding goes to the nesting boxes first, then the chicken coop floor second, and last to the manure box, before I take it out to the compost. By using this method, my bedding is optimized, and I only need to clean the entire chicken coop once a quarter or so.

One last word on the roosting bar. You might have noticed that many of my photos of our "Hollywood Girls" are taken in our gardens or outside of their chicken coop, after I have been preaching about protecting and containing your chickens. First of all, you have to know your chicken flock, and what they will do. Our chickens love to explore our property, and are quite well-behaved. I only let our chickens out, when I am home, and in the garden to keep one eye on them. I never let them out and then run to the grocery store. I always leave the front door of their chicken coop open, so they can come back for water or a little laying mash. With that said, if you let your chickens out in your yard or property, at dusk they will come back to their chicken coop faithfully, and head straight to their roosting bar for the night. Once they are in, make sure to secure them in, by locking their door and windows for the night.

Hen nesting boxes are a way of organizing your hens and their business of egg-laying. If you do not provide nesting boxes, you could find eggs everywhere as if you were at an "Easter Egg Hunt". You wouldn't know where they were laid, or how fresh they were.

Organize your chicken coop with nesting boxes on one side, inside the chicken coop. Hens will inately seek a nesting box to be quiet, and finish the process of laying their egg. Nesting boxes afford them a quiet, clean space to relax, and lay their egg undisturbed..

I have six nesting boxes in my chicken coop, in two rows of three. The first row is mounted off of the chicken coop floor at 18", and the second row begins at 36" off of the chicken coop floor. My nesting boxes are a little larger than is necessary because I have the room and my chickens are the larger, heavier breeds. In the photos, my nesting boxes are 16" wide, 14" deep, and heights at 18" high and 12" high, respectively.

Make sure your nesting boxes are secured to hold the weight of several hens. A minimum size for nesting boxes is 12"w x 12"d x 12"h. If you have the room, make your nesting boxes a little larger for your hens. Nesting boxes can be make out of plywood. I have seen vintage metal hen nesting boxes, that come as one piece or row, at flea markets. The nesting box is open on one side where the hen enters and lays down. Create a little lip on the front of each nesting box so the hen has something to grip on when entering her nesting box, and to prevent eggs from rolling out.

Dry fresh bedding consisting of straw or pine shavings will be comfortable for laying hens, and keep their eggs clean and secure until they are collected. Rotate bedding out on a regular basis to the manure box, for instance, or your compost pile. Hens do not normally dirty their nesting boxes, but clean out any manure droppings, or if an egg has somehow cracked and broken open in the nesting boxes. Broken eggs can attract ants.

Each hen does not lay at the same time, so you do not need to provide a nesting box for every single hen. A rule of thumb I like is to provide at least one nesting box for every 3 hens in your flock. Sometimes you might have a few social hens using one nesting box together. Also, you might find you have a clutch of eggs in one nesting box that several hens have used, one after another.

If you like, you can even track your egg production by writing in a notebook or a journal how many eggs per day you collected, and any other observations. Try and follow a routine for yourself and your hens, by collecting your eggs about the same time each morning or each evening.

Collect your eggs every day from your nesting boxes, either with a nice somewhat insulated basket or even with recycled egg cartons. Be careful not to "clang" your eggs together. Freshly laid eggs are remarkable. They come complete with an invisible protective coating from the hen that keeps them fresh. For that reason, you should not wash or rinse your eggs, unless they have a bit of manure on them. Collected eggs are ready for your refrigerator to keep until you are ready to eat, cook, or bake with them.

When we bought our property in the late '90's, it was sadly run down, but with a few treasures such as an old child's playhouse close to our garage. Once we were acclimated, we turned our attention to the potential of gardens, shaped trees, and desirable landscape. Soon after that we dragged the extremely heavy child's playhouse, long abandoned, down to a quiet southwest corner of our property. We saw the potential for modifying this "cutie pie" house into a perfect country coop for our soon-to-be-arriving hens.

We first set out to secure our chicken coop in its new location. Following that, we throughly cleaned it, removed any sharp points, rain proofed it, and repaired wood boards. We next modified the windows with a strong secure wire screen, so no varmits could make their way through a window, and then created shutters to close and secure the chickens in at night. Doors, windows, and shutters should open from the outside, so as not to take up valuable space inside your chicken coop. We made a front door that opened and closed, and made a backdoor which opened and closed to the adjoining enclosed outside pen. A clever addition was a smaller door, within the back door which could be used for winter time or at times when weather is extreme. We painted the trim of the chicken coop and its front porch, and made hen nesting boxes on one side of the coop, and mounted a night roosting bar on the opposite side. Our front door and outside back door had locking capabilities.

If you have an existing building on your property or in your yard, it might be worthy of repurposing for chickens. Chickens are very forgiving, and I have heard of all sorts of housing or "recooping" from using abandoned cars, to run down avairies, to abandoned storage sheds. As I mentioned before, there are basics to keeping chickens, and the easier to clean a chicken coop, the easier it is going to be on you and your hens. It is key that you provide good ventilation without a draft for your hens. It is also important that your chicken coop be dry, and not damp and humid. Chickens respond well to sunlight for egg-laying and overall health so position your coop and outside pen accordingly, but don't forget to provide some shade too, either with a shade cloth or landscaping.

Chickens do best with feed and fresh water at all times. I hang a source of water in the outside pen, and a provide a smaller source of water inside the chicken coop floor, placed on two bricks. The feed bucket I take out to the adjoining outside pen in the morning, and return it in the evening inside the chicken coop, unless it is going to rain or storm. Please note, keep feed dry at all times. Wet feed can become moldy, rancid, and attract bugs. Chickens should not be feed wet or moldy feed. Feed stores have feeders and waters for reasonable prices. Hanging the feeders and waters is a good idea, and keeps the feed and water clean and prevents spillage. Feeders and waters should be hung by a chain at about the height of a hen's back.

Here in Southern California, temperatures rarely drop to freezing. Therefore we don't need to heat our chicken coop. Also, with the chicken coop closed up tightly at night, the hen's bodies huddled together at night on their roosting bar, also helps to keep them warm. In other parts of the country, you might have to provide heat in your chicken coop, and that would also be a factor where you locate your chicken coop.

Hens naturally need 8 hours of daylight to lay continuously. When daylight decreases, hens slowly stop laying, drop their feathers, and take a break from egg-laying, called molting. This process can take several weeks, do not be alarmed. Eventually, hens grow in beautiful new feathers, and begin to start laying eggs again. If you wish to have eggs year round from your flock, you must provide a light source to supplement the daylight length, such as a 40 watt bulb above their feeding and watering area. I prefer to let my hens follow their natural cycle, and not supplement with additional light as the day length decreases. If you require light, this too would be a factor in where you locate your chicken coop for electricity.

The size of your flock is going to be determined by your available square footage for your chicken coop, and hopefully adjoining outside pen. You cannot determine you want 12 hens, when you have proper square footage for only 5 hens. Hens will naturally form a "pecking order", and with over crowding it can lead to cannibalism, broken eggs, disease, etc.

There are a lot of points to consider when creating your chicken coop, but most of it is common sense and good management.

Before we talk about the backyard chicken coop, let's talk about chickens first. There are other requirements other than your desire to have chickens in your backyard.

Are you zoned for chickens? If you don't know that answer, call your city office, and make sure you are zoned for keeping chickens. You do not want to go to all of the time, work, and possible expense of building a chicken coop, to have a neighbor squeal on you.

Do you have enough space for them? If you have a postage-size backyard, you probably do not have enough room. Chickens, generally speaking require spacing of 1.5-2 square feet/bird for the chicken coop, and 8-10 square feet/bird for their outside protected pen area. Chickens are very busy and active as a rule, and if they are too confined many problems may follow. You probably don't want your chickens too close to your home or back patio for obvious reasons.

Do you have a game plan as to where you are going to keep your chickens? Do you have an old shed or stand alone building that can be modified into a chicken coop? Will it be safe from rusty nails or exposure to anything that would harm them. Are you planning on building a custom chicken coop? You must provide shelter for them so they are protected from weather and predators. Make sure your chicken coop is large enough for you to get in and out of easily for interacting with your hens, egg collection, and cleaning.

Are you responsible to care, feed, manage your hen flock faithfully everyday? Chickens are living creatures, very sweet, and very sensitive. They require everyday attention, just like your dog or cat. Caring for chickens are wonderful lessons for children. They learn lessons about responsibility, discipline, friendship, raising your own food, rewards, and more. Do you have a close neighbor or relative who can watch and care for your chickens when you are out of town?

Do you own a dog now, that is a terror for the neighborhood cats? Or do you have big problems with coyotes on your property? If you have known existing dangers, it is probably not wise to introduce chickens to this equation.

Will having chickens break your bank? Young chicks and pullets are very reasonable to purchase. Most of your expensive will come from purchasing their ongoing feed and bedding. Are you planning on building your chicken coop from scratch...do you have the money for that initial investment? Heaven forbid, but there might be times when your chickens need a vet. Can you afford a vet for your chickens?

Are chickens easy to care for? They can be quite independent, but I find they enjoy human interaction and bond easily with people who care for them. They can be petted and picked up, but don't do well with roughness. They enjoy treats, beside their laying mash, such as fresh cantaloupe, strawberry hulls, fresh chard, lettuce, etc. Remember, what a chicken eats, determines the taste of their eggs. Never feed chickens any poisonous plants, or anything with strong flavors.

Chickens give back. Chickens have different personalities, and even sounds, which make them all unique. They are a lot of fun to watch, and interact with. They are always busy, and on the go. You will soon experience eggs, like you have never tasted before. Their manure droppings can become a valuable addition to your compost pile, and ultimately your garden. Chickens require little, but yet quickly become a part of your life.

Since I started writing about our chickens, there has been a lot of interest and questions on how to care for them. What are the components of a good chicken coop, and what kind of environment provided makes for healthy, happy, chickens. I think that many potential backyard enthusiasts would like to have chickens, but don't know what all is necessary to provide for them. I hope that I can clarify that for you.

Late spring is probably your best time to start with chickens, and is probably the best selection of various breeds available at feed stores, and by mail order. Spring days continue to get longer and warmer. As I mentioned in an earlier post, unless you want to provide heat, and extra protection for chicks, it is easier to start with young pullets (hens) who are 2-3 months old. At this age, you can see their feather markings as to what breed of chicken they are, and they will start laying in another 3-4 months. You have a chance to bond with them when they are young, and they have a chance to get acquainted with their new home and surroundings before the business of egg-laying commences.

I thought all of this information might be best presented in a series of posts, called "Backyard Chicken Coop", covering such topics in detail as the hen nesting boxes, the night roost, the manure box, the actual chicken coop, the adjoining outside pen, and even the embellishment of the chicken coop with plants and vines.

Chickens are so much fun, and a joy to have! If you already have chickens, and a chicken coop, and would like to share your stories and ideas, please feel free to comment.

If you are a gardener, chances are you like to grow herbs, too. One of the most beautiful herbs I have ever grown is the ornamental oregano, Kent Beauty, Origanum rotundifolium. While most oregano varieties are grown for their culinary use, Kent Beauty and a few other ornamental oregano varieties are not, and in fact, have no taste at all. Ornamental oregano are best used for their beauty in gardens, borders, and especially containers.

In the photo above, I created a tiny hanging basket out of a vintage horse muzzle, lined with moss, and planted with a 4" Kent Beauty plant. As the Kent Beauty grows, it spills gracefully over the sides of its re-purposed container. Its simplicity is enchanting.

Kent Beauty is a delightfully fragrant herb, attractive to bees, and has such a delicate "tossled" beauty about it. Its foliage is actually hard to describe. It has wiry stems that reach 4" in height, with beautiful blue-green stemless rounded leaves.

Off of these stem ends, bloom textured bracts, similar to hop, in a delicate mauve pale pink color throughout the summer. These delightful mauve pink bracts can be cut in full bloom, hung, and dried upside down for use in crafts.

Kent Beauty is native to Turkey, Armenia, and Republic of Georgia and is a hydrid ornamental oregano of Origanum rotundifolium x Origanum scabrum. I have seen multiple preferred climate zones for this herb, so check with your plant source for details for your area first, before purchasing.

Prune Kent Beauty closely back, after its summer bloom. It does best in well-drained soil. It prefers to be in dry soil, between thorough waterings. It is best to protect it from excessive winter moisture. It is available in local nurseries, and a good website I found for ornamental oregano varieties and purchasing is http://www.mountainvalleygrowers.com/index.html.

Last year my husband, John, and I were featured in an article called "Grow Greener" highlighting our flower/vegetable gardens, and organic practices in, Nature's Garden magazine, Spring 2008, http://www.debraprinzing.com/articles.php?article_id=40, written by friend, Debra Prinzing, an incredible garden and design features writer. See below, for more information on Debra. For this article, she asked me my "top ten healthy garden practices", and the last one I chose was "order before beauty", which Debra so aptly penned, "Chores Have Their Rewards".

One of the chores I was particularly thinking about, was caring for your tools. Tools should always be cleaned, dried, and stored away in an orderly manner. If you have the due diligence, go one step further and wrap clean rags or towels around your tool heads before stowing away. Spring is especially a great time to prep your garden tools and have them ready, for all of your busy gardening needs, so you can "hit the dirt running".

Take a good look at your tool inventory and their condition. Do you know where your favorite tools are? Are your tools clean, or a bit rusty? If so, deep clean and lubricate them. Do they seem dull when using, or do they still have their sharp edge? Make sure your tools are sharp, it will save you physically. Are your tool handles rough or soft to the touch? If rough, lightly sand your wood handle tools with fine sandpaper, and apply a generous amount of linseed oil with a soft cloth. If the oil absorbs quickly, reapply. Your tool handles will be as soft as velvet and a treat to work with. Properly cared for tools can last generations, and can be handed down from one generation to the next budding generation of gardeners.

It is all the same, whether it is your personal life, your home, or your garden. If you are organized and tidy, you will be much more effective, efficient, and accomplish more effortlessly. You will soon experience the rewards. There is a great quote that reinforces this message. "When you do the things you have to do when you have to do them, the day will come when you can do the things you want to do when you want to do them."--Zig Ziglar, Author.

Debra Prinzing is a Southern California-based writer and lecturer who specializes in interiors, architecture, and landscape design themes. For more information and articles, please visit her website, www.debraprinzing.com, and her blog, www.shedstyle.com. Her latest book, with William Wright, architectural and interior design photographer, is called "Stylish Sheds and Elegant Hideways".

Another favorite early spring blooming shrub of mine is the showy "Razzleberry" evergreen shrub, also called Chinese Fringe Flower Loropetalum chinense, var. rubrum "Razzleberry". Its striking deep pink fringe-like flowers have a sort of "flopsy mopsy" show-off demeanor. In spring, its foliage is a verdant green, deepening to a beautiful bronze color later in the year.

Not only are its flowers and leaves showy, I love its mound-like structure, too. Although it can reach 4 feet high and wide in maturity, I keep mine compact at about 3 feet high by 3 feet wide, and off of the ground. Its layers of graceful arching branches add to Razzleberry's flowering drama which is best in the spring, but it can flower at other times throughout the year, too. It benefits from a shapely trim, now and then, and certainly before its spring bloom.

Originally from Japan and Southern China, this evergreen shrub is drought tolerant once established, and likes sun to partial shade. I planted mine under a mature avocado tree, so it has sun and partial shade. I also planted it along my boxwood pathway, surely to be noticed by passersby.

The Razzleberry shrub can be used in many different ways in the garden. Place it in an entrance to a sun-speckled woodlood garden. Plant it next to a wonderful gurgling water feature. Espalier it against your courtyard wall. With young plants, you can pot it in a patio container with other color, or in your favorite moss-covered hanging basket.

Loropetalum chinense, or Chinese Fringed Flower, comprises a large variety of cultivars, with pink, red, or white flowers and various other size and structural characteristics. Besides, the Razzleberry, other popular varieties are Ruby, Sizzling Pink, and Burgundy. They grow best in zones 7-9. These shrubs are easily found in local nurseries, and by mail order via the internet.

For an eye-catching addition to your spring garden, plant a dazzling Razzleberry shrub. Do you have a Chinese Fringed Flower shrub in your garden, you'd like to share comments on?