Just make sure that the heat lamp is at a safe distance to prevent your chickens from getting too close (chickens like to perch, so make sure the heat lamp is at an elevated area that they can't reach). A coop that is dry and free of draft (but still ventilated) is very essential to maintaining reasonable heat within the shelter. When blood is drawn, the blood will strike the fancy of other chickens in the henhouse will start pecking at the bloodied chicken sometimes to death. A chicken house is already cramped when there is less than three square feet of space per chicken. Likewise, the nest box should not be designed to accommodate more than four chickens. When designing the feeders, raise the elevation as high as the chickens back to prevent the chickens scratching their feed and creating a mess when feeding. This design is also the same for the water pans. Clean water must be available to the chickens every day. These are the basic elements when building a backyard chicken coop. It will also be practical as frequent intrusions disturbs chicken and that destroys eggs in the process let alone the muck that you will help splatter around. In place of the egg chute, construct the chicken nest box with doors constructed at the backside so that you could collect the eggs from outside the coop without disturbing the chickens very much. Keeping Chicken Chicken Feeding Worries For people who are getting started with raising chickens one of the main issues is the right chicken feeding proportions, the heating of some of the feeds, the kind and the quality of the feed. Another worry considered seriously is the chicken actually starving because the feeding failed in one way or the other. This may not be as dangerous in hotter months when there are easier prey for the fox to pounce on but during colder months, the fox could hunt more aggressively and get a shelter besides. While at it, do not trim the wire at the top portion of the fence. Leave it rugged. Use the GI sheets as further protection between the posts where you nail your chicken wire.