Chicken Coops for Sale in Vance, Alabama
Chicken Coops for Sale in Vance, Alabama
Build Your Own Chicken Coop – A story of chickens
So WAY back in March…Josh and I had a talk with the boys and we decided as a family that we would get some chickens. We were all pretty excited about this new adventure and couldn’t wait to get started! At the beginning of April we headed over to to figure out what we would need and how many chickens we wanted. They had a very helpful employee who told us everything we would need to know about taking care of our chickens. Also, lucky for us we had Housewife Gena available to answer any questions we might have!
The boys were excited to help pick out the chickens and were even more excited when the IFA staff told us the chicks needed to be held lots and lots so they would be used to the kids. 🙂� After about an hour there we came home with…
Six adorable chicks! Because we are a family of five we decided to get two chickens that are said to lay daily and four chickens that lay 3-4 times a week. We figured that would be plenty of eggs for us!
A couple weeks later, IFA did an Easter Egg Hunt. Now being a farm supply store, they don’t give away just candy in their eggs, they also give away…you guessed it CHICKENS! (And bunnies and ducks and turkeys) Housewife Jenn’s kids ended up with four leghorn chicks! Another family in our ward decided they didn’t need any extra chickens and gave Jenn’s family another two chicks! Since we were already building a coop for our chicks, we offered to let Jenn’s family’s chicks live with ours.
So here are the little chicks! Happy under their heat lamp and eating away! 🙂�
While our chicks were perfectly happy in the garage, in their tote…it quickly got too small for 12 chicks. As soon as they were ready, we transferred them to the backyard to a makeshift coop. I did not take a picture of the makeshift coop because…well it was pretty sad. It served it’s purpose and the chickens loved it but it was not anything you’d want to show off! With that in mind, Josh began the process of building a coop for our chickens. We saw a coop at IFA that we thought looked great! However, it was $600.00. As much as we liked our chickens…we didn’t $600.00 like them!
So Josh took a few measurements and we sketched out what we wanted for our chickens, using the IFA coop as inspiration. We took a trip to Lowe’s to price out our materials. We were lucky enough that we had left over wood, Jenn’s family had left over wood and a family a few houses down from us reroofed their house and donated their left over roofing supplies to us! It was our goal to use as many materials as we already had and keep the cost as low as possible!
Let me say now…Josh and I have never “built” anything. Really. This was quite an adventure for us (mostly Josh since he did almost all of the work) and I’m so happy with how it all turned out!
He started with the base for the coop itself. We wanted to make sure that there was enough clearance for the chickens to use under the coop as part of the chicken run.
He used four 3″ screws in each post to make sure it was nice and sturdy.
Wall framing almost done!
Look what happens when you start building a coop…your chickens start laying eggs! 🙂� (So far Jenn’s chickens are the only ones laying. Lucky for us, our chickens are DUAL chickens so if they don’t get to laying…they going to get to frying!)
The framing completed from two angles.
Up go the walls!
Putting in the hinged door for collecting eggs.
Getting the eggs out will be a breeze! 🙂�
A few angles of the walls all up and the plywood for the roof up. As you can see, our coop has skylights…that’s how we roll.
First coat of paint and the tar paper on the roof. You may wonder why we chose this color for the coop. Well to be completely honest, we picked colors we wanted to paint our house and figured the coop would be the perfect guinea pig to see if we like the colors! 🙂� The coop is Valspar’s Royal Gray. (I know, it looks blue to me too!)
For the door we chose Valspar’s Kettle Black. It has blue undertones so it goes really well with the Royal Gray.
The roof complete with the windows in. I’ve seen lots of super cute coops with real glass windows. It was less expensive ($1.29 a pane) to just use plexiglass. And it worked perfectly!
The coop with the final coat of paint, windows/hardware on and trim put up.
The door on the coop. We chose to put a large door on the side to make it easier to clean out for us. And I have to say that it makes it look way cuter! 🙂�
The Roosting bar inside the coop.
Trim all painted and mesh put around the bottom of the coop.
The nesting boxes. The only thing I didn’t get a picture of was the peel and stick tiles that we put on the bottom of the coop. They were only $0.02 a tile! I think we ended up using about 14 tiles.
The finished product with the happy chickens inside!
Another angle. After the coop itself was completed. Josh used 2 x 2’s and 2 x 3’s to build the frame for the yard and another, outdoor roosting bar. We also added in the ramp for the chickens to get into the coop. I’m super proud of Josh for all of his hard work and I’m really excited for how amazing it turned out!! Our total cost for the entire coop…every last nail, hinge, can of paint, everything was about $290.00. And the best part is the chicken coop and run are significantly bigger than the one at IFA. 🙂� So HUGE round of applause for Josh and the coop!
UPDATE: Hello dear readers!!! This has been a long time coming, but this post is going to get a HUGE revamp! With having babies and life getting in the way, I’ve neglected this post and getting out the information that I should. I am going to be working on updating this post with as much information on the building and materials as I can. We didn’t keep super great track of all the materials we used, but I will do the best I can to give you as much info as possible! Thank you all again for loving this project!
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Chicken Coop Plans in Vance, Alabama
A good place to start any search is the internet. Simply plugging in the phrase "chicken coops for sale in Vance Alabama" into any one of the numerous search engines and a wealth of information will pop up. This information will provide links to other websites that will be informative and will provide the right direction for finding Vance Alabama chicken coops. What to look for when buying a chicken coop in Vance, Alabama With the substantial rise in chicken maintaining there has actually been a just as big rise in the variety of poultry stuff on sale. Fowl housing is a proceedings in factor. It's additionally a traditional example of the excellent old bandwagon being got on as different would-be poultry real estate experts peddle a variety of lodging asserting to be the excellent remedy to your chicken real estate needs. Typically the price looks attractive, the house looks desirable, hell also the clean-cut family standing there feeding the chickens look appealing. Certainly they recognize a quality chicken house when they see one? There are several inexpensive as well as awful coops flooding the market. I know this as I've checked a variety of them in the field, and seen a ewe run directly through one when the feed container showed up. The outcome was just a pricey stack of fire wood and a small group of bemused and also now homeless bantams.
Baby Chick Incubator in Vance, Alabama
More often than not these standardized designs are constructed of rapid grown up lumber - come the very first decrease of rainfall they swell, leaving you either fortifying a doorway that won't close, or ripping the door furnishings off in a vain effort to release the squawking residents. The very first warm and comfortable day means the timber dries out as well as cracks, the really felt roof covering bubbles as well as boils, and come nightfall the hens refuse to enter. This is not as a result of their disappointment at the decrease of their when eye-catching home yet considering that the hovel is now a haven for, and most likely crawling with, the poultry keeper's nemesis, red mite. Add on the fact that it stated on the blurb that it would certainly suit four huge hens when that equipping thickness was based upon the Circle Line at 5pm on a Friday, as well as just what are you left with? A few hinges and also some kindling. A good coop for thee to four birds need to cost you approximately ₤ 300 though this can depend upon whether you choose for a cost-free standing house or one with a run connected. Presuming you are ranging your birds in a big room as well as the pop opening doorway allows enough for the breed you keep, then the main requirements of real estate boil down to three factors which will specify the number of birds your house will hold; perches, nest boxes and also ventilation. Many types of chicken will perch when they visit roost in the evening, this perch must ideally be 5-8cm vast with smoothed off edges so the foot rests pleasantly on it. The perch ought to be higher than the nest box entrance as chickens will certainly likewise normally try to find the highest point to perch. A perch lower than that will certainly have the birds roosting in the nest box over night (which is by the way when they create one of the most poo) bring about stained eggs the list below day. They shouldn't nonetheless be so high off the floor of your house that leg injuries can occur when the bird comes down in the early morning. Chickens require regarding 20cm of perch each (in small types this is clearly less), plus if more than one perch is mounted in your home they must be more than 30cm apart. They will certainly hunker up with their neighbors however are not that crazy about roosting with a beak in the bloomers of the bird ahead. Ideally your house must have a least one nest box for each 3 birds as well as these need to be off the ground and also in the darkest area of your house. Your house needs to have sufficient ventilation: without it after that condensation will build up every evening, even in the chilliest of weather condition. Know, air flow works with the concept of warm air leaving with a high gap attracting cooler air in from a reduced space - it's not a collection of openings on opposite wall surfaces of your home as well as at the exact same degree, this is just what's known as a draught. If you have a house with a run attached after that the points above are still real, however you ought to additionally consider the run size. The EU optimum lawful stocking density for a free range bird is (as well as allow's encounter it, among the motivations for keeping some hens in your home is possibly boosted or better well-being) 2,500 birds each hectare, that's maximum one bird each 4m settled. Take a close take a look at a few of the deal residences - it could well be your home has the right perches, proper ventilation as well as ample nest boxes for a sensible number of birds, however will each of the chickens have anything more than an A4 sized item of ground to spend the day on? And so as the stating goes, "you get exactly what you spend for". You may assume you've grabbed a bargain, but you and also your group could possibly rue the day you did. Acquisition the best house as well as it will certainly last for a few decades, if not longer given the appropriate therapy. In the long run your fowl and also your poultry maintaining experience will certainly be considerably the far better for it.coops plans
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