Chicken Coops for Sale in Phoenix, Arizona
Chicken Coops for Sale in Phoenix, Arizona
Eggs! Raise Your Own Hens In A Chicken Coop Built From Scrap
From a long line of egg farmers in Holland, Karin’s dad finally builds her a chicken coop
Where bylaws allow, or can be bypassed, I highly recommend building your own chicken coop. Imagine getting fresh, free-range organic eggs every day? When my parents came to visit me in Jaffa a few months ago, Dad found himself bored. Back in Holland, my family the Van Der Meers were one of the biggest egg producers in the country before the Depression. So you could say, eggs are in our genes. With Dad nothing to do for a few weeks, I brought up the idea of having him build me a chicken coop. That got him kind of excited. He foraged for wood in my backyard and came up with a coop that resembles a bus stop. The Chicken Express? Step right up and I’ll tell you how to build a coop in a few easy steps. And no you don’t have to invest much, unless you want to make your coop designer.
In warm climates very little is needed to keep your hens happy – basically a roof over their heads, a lengthwise pole for curling their toes around when they sleep at night (you might want to raise it high where feral cats might stalk your chickens), and some fencing to keep them from, well, flying the coop.
Here are our chickens before we bought them.
As it turns out, Bedouin chickens which we bought in the Negev Desert, are very agile creatures and even sleep in our blackberry tree some nights. The fencing doesn’t help them that much, but it does keep them contained somewhat, and out of the mouth of our crazy dog.
Here’s what you’ll need to build the coop:
- A corner on your roof, garden, or backyard for the chicken coop, a couple meters by a couple meters at least
- An old door or piece of plywood for a roof
- Some plywood for the sides
- Chicken wire, if you want to contain the chickens outside the coop (they eat weeds so consider letting them run loose)
- A wooden pole
- Some boxes, or crates for roosting. Throw in something soft.
- Feed
Find a corner to build against, saving yourself the need to build 2 extra walls. Be lazy. Make sure there’s a roof for the chickens to protect them against the sun, and rain, and in the winter if it gets cold, you can throw a carpet over the sides to keep the cold wind out. Make sure they have three walls.
We built a 2 meter or so pole, installed horizontally, down low about 50 cm off the ground but noticed some street cats were preying on our hens and raised the pole to about 1.5 meters off the ground. Most chickens can fly to this height but see what works for yours. It really doesn’t take much to make your chickens happy. But they do need a pole to sleep on at night.
What you feed your chickens:
- A basic seed/corn meal
- Compost – can include eggshells (ours really love labane cheese – could be because they are Bedouin hens)
- Garden weeds and greens (let them go wild!)
- Worms and bugs (they feed themselves while aerating the ground)
- Endless supply of water
Chickens do need basic feed, that which can be bought at a feedlot. Some inquiring around on where to find chickens and feed might be in order. Animal markets for livestock might be your best bet. Ask around in places like that. We bought a huge drum of feed consisting of corn meal and other seeds, and feed our chickens a regular diet of all the vegetable-based compost that would otherwise be composted. But don’t worry. Chicken doo makes an excellent compost too. One of my friends can’t eat eggs unless they are free-range and fed with organic oats. So it’s really up to you to decide how to feed your chickens, depending on your health needs and sensitivities.
We have five chickens and one rooster. The rooster is just for the fun of it. You don’t need one if you have neighbors nearby who will complain about the noise. And roosters DO make noise, waking us up as early as 1:30 am.
Bedouin women (crouching like crows) selling “bede” hens at the market
Unlike commercially-raised chickens, our hens don’t get “sunshine” 24 hours a day. Some parts of the year the chickens won’t lay. They will molt and take a break. And not every chicken will lay every day once she starts. We bought young chickens and it took them a couple of months to start laying. Now three of the five are laying, but like I said, not every day.
See a video interview with my dad about chickens
We bought our chickens at a Bedouin market (for about $10 each) because it was important for my husband that we have a “wild” variety – chickens that haven’t been genetically manipulated. Our eggs are on the small to medium size, the yolks absolutely huge compared to the white. One hen is laying eggs with the most delightful little beige specks on them.
Dad (left), the closest link to my family of egg people is determined that next time he comes to visit me in the Middle East he’ll be smuggling in white hen eggs – “the real good layers” – from Canada. He keeps asking me about building an incubator for these eggs to become hatchlings. Hopefully it will happen and when it does, I’ll report it here on Green Prophet.
Meanwhile, I am dreaming about how many eggs I will collect tomorrow. And how exciting it will be for my little baby daughter, when she gets bigger, to go out and collect them like I did when I was a little girl (that’s me in the top photo). My family had a coop in a suburban town outside Toronto until our evil neighbour complained and we had to get rid of it.
Before the complaints, I would go out and collect our eggs and sell them to our neighbors for a dollar a dozen, to cover the price of feed. Seriously, it was so much fun. If this blogger, and lazy environmentalist who is addicted to the computer can start a coop, you can too. Get cracking and join the new movement of urban farming.
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Baby Chick Hatcheries in Phoenix, Arizona
A good place to start any search is the internet. Simply plugging in the phrase "chicken coops for sale in Phoenix Arizona" 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 Phoenix Arizona chicken coops. What to look for when buying a chicken coop in Phoenix, Arizona With the huge boost in poultry keeping there has been an equally huge increase in the array of fowl stuff for sale. Poultry real estate is a situation in point. It's also a timeless example of the great old bandwagon being got on as numerous would-be poultry real estate professionals peddle a range of accommodation asserting to be the ideal remedy to your chicken real estate needs. Often the rate looks attractive, the house looks eye-catching, hell even the clean-cut household standing there feeding the chickens look attractive. Undoubtedly they recognize a quality chicken house when they see one? There are several economical and horrible cages flooding the market. I understand this as I've tested a number of them in the area, and also seen a ewe run straight via one when the feed pail showed up. The result was just a pricey stack of firewood and a tiny flock of bemused and also currently homeless bantams.
Baby Yellow Chick in Phoenix, Arizona
Most of the time these standardized versions are created of rapid grown up wood - come the first decrease of rainfall they swell, leaving you either barricading a doorway that won't shut, or ripping the doorway furniture off in a vain attempt to release the squawking residents. The initial cozy day means the timber dries and cracks, the really felt roofing system bubbles and boils, and come nightfall the chickens refuse to go in. This is not due to their dissatisfaction at the decrease of their as soon as attractive residential property however considering that the hovel is currently a place for, and also possibly abounding, the chicken caretaker's bane, red mite. Add on the fact that it claimed on the blurb that it would match 4 huge chickens when that equipping density was based on the Circle Line at 5pm on a Friday, and also what are you left with? A few hinges and some kindling. A suitable coop for thee to 4 birds should cost you approximately ₤ 300 though this could depend upon whether you choose for a cost-free standing house or one with a run attached. Thinking you are ranging your birds in a huge space as well as the pop hole doorway is big enough for the type you maintain, after that the primary needs of real estate boil down to 3 factors which will specify the variety of birds the house will hold; perches, nest boxes as well as air flow. A lot of breeds of chicken will certainly perch when they visit roost during the night, this perch should ideally be 5-8cm vast with smoothed off sides so the foot rests easily on it. The perch must be higher than the nest box entrance as chickens will certainly likewise normally try to find the acme to perch. A perch below that will certainly have the birds roosting in the nest box over night (which is incidentally when they create one of the most poo) causing stained eggs the following day. They should not nevertheless be so high off the floor of your house that leg injuries could possibly occur when the bird gets down in the early morning. Chickens need about 20cm of perch each (in little breeds this is clearly much less), plus if greater than one perch is mounted in the house they ought to be more than 30cm apart. They will certainly hunker up with their next-door neighbors yet are not that crazy about roosting with a beak in the bloomers of the bird ahead. Preferably the house needs to have a the very least one nest box for each three birds as well as these need to be off the ground as well as in the darkest location of the house. Your house ought to have appropriate air flow: without it then condensation will certainly develop every evening, even in the coldest of weather condition. Know, ventilation works on the concept of warm and comfortable air leaving with a high void attracting cooler air in from a reduced void - it's not a collection of openings on contrary wall surfaces of your house and also at the very same level, this is what's called a draught. If you have a house with a run connected after that the factors above are still true, yet you ought to additionally think about the run dimension. The EU maximum lawful equipping thickness for a free variety bird is (and allow's encounter it, among the motivations for keeping some hens in your home is potentially boosted or far better welfare) 2,500 birds per hectare, that's maximum one bird each 4m made even. Take a close consider several of the deal houses - it could well be the house has the right perches, correct air flow and also sufficient nest boxes for a practical number of birds, but will each of the chickens have anything more than an A4 sized piece of ground to spend the day on? Therefore as the saying goes, "you obtain what you spend for". You could believe you've got hold of a deal, yet you as well as your group can rue the day you did. Acquisition the appropriate house as well as it will certainly last for a few years, otherwise longer given the appropriate therapy. In the end your chicken and also your fowl maintaining encounter will certainly be considerably the better for it.coops for sale
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