One thing many gardeners spend money on is manure. However, if you have a large enough piece of land and city or town regulations allow you to keep chickens, goats, or rabbits, you can have your own organic manure supply. Since I live in the country, I keep all three.
How to Build Animal Housing by Carol Ekarius is filled with instructions and plans for building attractive and functional housing for animals. Among my favorites is the ark for chickens. This is a portable chicken house complete with a small run. There are also good, simple plans for rabbit hutches and A frame shelters, as well as plans for larger structures. If you keep any type of livestock, this book’s 60 plans for housing, as well as additional information on building nest boxes and roosts, is a very useful tool.
Not sure if you want to get any outdoor critters? Try a chicken or two. Besides providing a source of manure, chickens love to eat garden bugs and will even give you fresh eggs. They also enjoy eating chickweed and pecking at grasses. These little garden cops are a lot of fun, but you will need to be sure that you have a securely fenced area to keep predators out and chickens in. I built my chickens’ coop using the plans from How to Build Animal Housing.
About the book:
Title: How to Build Animal Housing
Author: Carol Ekarius
Publisher: Story Publishing
Date: 2004
ISBN: 1-58017-527-9
Price: $24.95
How to Build Animal Housing: 60 Plans for Coops, Hutches, Barns, Sheds, Pens, Nest Boxes, Feeders, Stanchions, and Much More
