Chicken Coops for Sale in San Fernando, California
Chicken Coops for Sale in San Fernando, California
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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Chicken Coop Run in San Fernando, California
A good place to start any search is the internet. Simply plugging in the phrase "chicken coops for sale in San Fernando California" 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 San Fernando California chicken coops. What to look for when buying a chicken coop in San Fernando, California With the huge boost in poultry maintaining there has actually been an equally large surge in the range of chicken stuff on sale. Fowl housing is a situation in point. It's additionally a traditional instance of the great old bandwagon being jumped on as various would-be poultry real estate specialists pitch a variety of accommodation declaring to be the ideal remedy to your chicken real estate needs. Commonly the price looks appealing, the house looks attractive, hell even the clean-cut household standing there feeding the chickens look desirable. Certainly they know a top quality chicken house when they see one? There are many inexpensive and also unpleasant coops swamping the marketplace. I know this as I've examined a variety of them in the field, and seen a ewe run directly with one when the feed pail appeared. The outcome was just a pricey heap of fire wood as well as a small flock of bemused and also currently homeless bantams.
Chicken Coop Plans For 20 Chickens in San Fernando, California
Typically these mass produced versions are built of rapid grown up timber - come the very first decline of rainfall they swell, leaving you either defending a door that will not close, or tearing the doorway furnishings off in a vain effort to launch the squawking citizens. The first warm day means the wood dries out and cracks, the really felt roof covering bubbles as well as boils, and come nightfall the hens refuse to go in. This is not due to their dissatisfaction at the decline of their once eye-catching property yet since the hovel is now a sanctuary for, and probably crawling with, the fowl keeper's nemesis, red mite. Add on that it said on the blurb that it would match four large hens when that stocking thickness was based on the Circle Line at 5pm on a Friday, and exactly what are you entrusted? A number of joints as well as some kindling. A respectable coop for thee to 4 birds should cost you around ₤ 300 though this can depend on whether you elect for a totally free standing house or one with a run affixed. Assuming you are ranging your birds in a big area and also the pop opening doorway allows enough for the type you keep, after that the major demands of real estate come down to 3 points which will certainly define the variety of birds your home will certainly hold; perches, nest boxes and ventilation. Many breeds of chicken will perch when they go to roost during the night, this perch should preferably be 5-8cm vast with smoothed off sides so the foot sits comfortably on it. The perch must be more than the nest box access as chickens will certainly additionally naturally try to find the highest point to perch. A perch lower than that will certainly have the birds roosting in the nest box overnight (which is incidentally when they produce one of the most poo) leading to soiled eggs the following day. They shouldn't nonetheless be so high off the floor of the house that leg injuries might occur when the bird gets down in the early morning. Chickens require concerning 20cm of perch each (in small breeds this is clearly less), plus if more than one perch is mounted in the house they need to be greater than 30cm apart. They will certainly hunker up with their neighbors yet are not that crazy about roosting with a beak in the bloomers of the bird ahead. Ideally the house needs to have a least one nest box for every single three birds and also these need to be off the ground and also in the darkest location of your house. Your house should have ample air flow: without it after that condensation will certainly build up every night, even in the chilliest of weather condition. Be aware, air flow works with the concept of warm and comfortable air leaving via a high space drawing cooler air in from a reduced space - it's not a set of holes on other wall surfaces of your home and also at the same level, this is exactly what's known as a draft. If you have a house with a run connected after that the factors above are still true, however you must likewise take into consideration the run size. The EU maximum lawful stocking density for a complimentary variety bird is (as well as allow's face it, among the motivations for maintaining some chickens at home is potentially improved or much better welfare) 2,500 birds each hectare, that's optimal one bird each 4m squared. Take a close take a look at several of the bargain homes - it could well be the house has the best perches, proper air flow and ample nest boxes for an affordable variety 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 stating goes, "you get what you pay for". You might assume you've got hold of a bargain, yet you and your flock might rue the day you did. Purchase the right house and it will last for a few decades, otherwise longer offered the proper treatment. Eventually your poultry as well as your poultry maintaining encounter will certainly be a lot the better for it.diy coops
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