I’m building a chicken coop and have a question as to placement in relation to my well?
bonny h asked:
The coop will house 15 chickens (for laying) and 10 birds (for meat). We have a well on our property, and I want to ensure that I have the coop far enough away from it so I don’t contaminate our ground water supply. I also want it close enough to the garden (which is right by the well) to allow for ease in feeding garden scraps to the chickens.
The coop will house 15 chickens (for laying) and 10 birds (for meat). We have a well on our property, and I want to ensure that I have the coop far enough away from it so I don’t contaminate our ground water supply. I also want it close enough to the garden (which is right by the well) to allow for ease in feeding garden scraps to the chickens.
Every search that I’ve done on google brings up chicken coop plans, but not the distance needed from a well.
Related posts:
- Chicken coop question!How many square feet of living space do chickens need in there coop?
- Essential Elements of Chicken Pen Plans – What to Consider When Building a DIY Coop
- A question for folks who have experience with chickens?
- DIY Chicken House Information And Advice
- Chickens In Your Backyard: A Beginner’s Guide (Paperback)
During my years on the farm, we always made sure that animal housings were at least 100 feet from the well. I don’t know of any laws or requirements, but that’s what my family did. You could probably go about 50 feet away and be fine. I wouldn’t go any closer than 50 feet. Have fun. I miss chickens.
It’s not so much distance as it is ground terrain and soil type. It also depends upon your well construction as a submersible pump at 150′ in a cased well is much less likely to become contaminated than a shallow well pump. Still, I would not be any closer than 150′ if it were my well. You might also consider and soil containment system for the coop that would not allow soil migration. They are not that difficult to construct and the govenrnent has free publications on how to do so.