Chicken keeping is becoming more & more popular and not just a pastime enjoyed by country folk either with access to a field or a few smallholding. Urban chicken keeping is growing, and becoming quite a trendy thing to be involved in.  Gone are the days when allotment growing and chicken keeping was a poor affair. I remember as a child, playing on friends allotments, the memory of sheds made out of old doors and tin sheets. Many of my friends kept ponies in these ramshackle tin lean to sheds and tethered them up in the allotment in the daytime.

Nowadays, the good life and grow your own is a very trendy business, the size and quality of your coop is a sign of your status and its very important to have one that '' tops the neighbours'' .......There are many different makes and models of chicken coop designs on the market today made in a variety of shapes and sizes suitable for a few bantam hens to larger chicken coops suitable for housing larger traditional garden hens. Chicken coop designs available on the market today vary quite a lot, some coops being very traditional and also its possible to opt for an ultra modern chicken coop instead.Framebow over the years have been responsible for altering the trends in chicken coop design. Around eight years ago , when we realized a need for a chicken coop that looks great in the garden as well as being highly practical, we decided to build our children a coop for the garden.. no need for loads of untidy chicken mesh enclosures and smelly chicken patches, we designed a chicken coop that's portable with detachable chicken run and also with a raised chicken house to keep the hens off the ground , reducing the presence of rodents and keeping the hens of the cold damp ground . Our detachable chicken run idea really has caught on now and is incorporated into much of the animal housing with runs on the market today.

The nest trend in terms of chicken house and chicken coop manufacture was the ''Feature Bracing'' Our old Amy chicken coop from our old range had feature bracing incorporated into the chicken run style which at the time was very trendy and the unit did very well, nowadays i find this model lovely but a little old fashioned..

Easy access chicken runs were another area we put thought into. We realized that its not necessary to have a great big chicken run structure in the garden to walk into, why not have a low level chicken coop with a roof that opens up via the hinging lid. We have a few designs of chicken coop with this feature, including the starter chicken coop and Amy chicken coop. These runs are ideal for those needing a walk in run that's not too over imposing.

Easy clean issues around the coop. Nothing worse than having to put your head inside a cobwebby coop to clean it, having to bend over backwards and paddling around in mud. All our chicken coop styles have easy clean features and require no bending to clean out the chicken house. The Amy chicken coop and Christy Chicken Coop are ideal for chicken keepers who don't wish to bend at all. The chicken house floor is at waist level , the chicken house roof panels remove on both sides of the chicken house also, making cleaning out your chickens an absolute doddle. Debates do occur regarding the best material to use to build a chicken coop.

As a tip , you could line your chicken coop with news paper, ideal for just quickly sliding out the hen house sliding floor in the mornings and quickly skipping out the paper, which can be easily disposed of either by putting on the compost heap or bonfire. Shavings and sawdust are good for absorbing chicken mess and lining the nesting boxes underneath the bedding. Our nesting boxes are brilliant to keep clean, we have designed a chicken nest box that lifts off the chicken house. There are no awkward clips or anything to undo to release the nest box from the chicken house, ever so quick and easy to use.

Stalosan is a fantastic product for using inside the chicken house. It provides an environment that bugs ,larvae and flies hate , a must  especially for the summer months, being super absorbent , aiding chicken coop hygiene. Its useful to have a small selection of tools for cleaning out your chicken coop, a small dustpan and brush comes in handy for skipping out a garden coop, small brush , wallpaper scraper comes in handy for scraping off our removable perches. Scrubbing brush for those chicken house spring cleaning sessions, garden pump spray and bucket. Why not visit The Garden Hen website, Francine sells a range of chicken coop cleaning tools and a selection of chicken keeping books.

Our latest ''Bendy Chicken Coop Range are really eye-catching. We use wood bending techniques to create our superb feature Chicken Runs . We joke in the workshop that ''They're made by Benders'' Instead of using our joinery expertise in producing joinery products for the house, we enjoy making garden buildings that are based more around leisure. Contemporary chicken coops and animal housing is our speciality, combining function and visual appeal for wonderful products.