Chicken Coops for Sale in Akron, Colorado
Chicken Coops for Sale in Akron, Colorado
Chicken Coops — The Top 5 Requirements
Chicken Coops – What You Need
Happy, healthy chickens need proper housing, but knowing what you need may seem daunting. Don’t let choosing the house for your chickens intimidate you. Meeting the needs of your flock, whether building your own chicken castle or buying ready-made, is easy and should provide for four basic needs.
- Protection from the elements
- Protection from predators
- Place for laying eggs
- A roost at night
The Components of a Chicken Coop
As I wrote in my , chickens have an innate homing instinct, keeping your flock close to home. Our feathered kids are such home bodies that even free ranging, every night before sundown all our chickens are perched in the coop. I always recommend a protected place for your flock to come home and roost for the night, even when free ranging.
You don’t need a poultry castle for your chickens to come home to. come in many shapes, sizes, and designs, from fancy to plain. Believe it or not, your chickens won’t care what the coop looks like as long as it provides the above four basic needs.
With that said, before deciding what type of coop you are going to buy or build, you must determine what coop features are needed that most closely conform to a chicken’s natural behavior. Hopefully I can help you understand what you need in the design of your chicken coop.
The Basics
Let’s start with the basics. All chicken coops need 3 things; a roof, 4 walls, and a doorway for entering and leaving. The design and the materials used for the chicken coop is up to you. As long as it is mostly draft free (you still need healthy ventilation), your choices are endless.
Your coop space is based on the number of chickens you plan to house. A good rule of thumb is 4 square feet of floor space per large chicken and 3 square feet for the smaller bantam breeds. Also consider the ease of cleaning when choosing your coop design; you’ll be glad you did.
Security
Making a chicken coop predator free is the most important part of building a home for your flock. Your coop must be secure from the top, bottom, and all sides. When looking at any pre-made coop or chicken coop building plans, consider all angles for security. Not only should you consider the security of the coop itself, but the security of the yard and run as well.
When choosing the wire for your run and coop, we advise steering clear of standard chicken wire. While it works well for keeping your chickens contained it’s not entirely predator proof. Because the holes in standard chicken wire are large, coyotes, raccoons, and foxes can still reach through the mesh, causing harm to your chickens. Always use a small hole wire like hardware cloth with ½ inch openings.
Another consideration when building the chicken yard or run, is airborne predators like hawks. You must include covering the top of the run as well. Our chicken runs use the same size mesh fencing on the top as the sides.
Finally, there are predators from below, such as rats and mice. These critters are attracted to the feed and droppings and like to burrow under your coop. Protect your chickens by using a coop with a floor built into it or burying small mesh fencing below the coop and extending it about 12 inches out on all sides.
The Outside Run
All coops need a connecting chicken run or pen. Chickens need access to the outside to do all those “chicken things”, like dirt baths, catching bugs, scratching dirt, or just relaxing in the sunshine or shade.
Ideally, your chicken run should have 10 square feet of ground space per full size chicken. The smaller bantam breeds require less, about 7 square feet per chicken. If your chickens free range the majority of the day, you can get by with less space.
Laying Boxes
If you want eggs, you need laying boxes. These can be as fancy or as plain as you like, just as long as they are about 12” x 12” and raised off the ground a few inches. You need one box for every 4 laying hens. Boxes should comfortably fit the chicken and have low enough sides for the hens to step over. Be sure to keep your boxes lined with clean straw or other bedding.
Roosting Perches
All birds roost, including chickens. Your coop needs a roosting bar or something off the ground on which your chickens can perch. We strongly suggest having perches both inside the coop and outside in the run area.
When figuring roosting pole size, provide 5-10” of space per chicken and 10” of space between each pole if you are using more than one. Multiple poles also need grading like ladders so the farthest pole is several inches higher than the next.
There are many shapes, sizes, and styles of chicken coops to choose from. Making the right choice for your needs is important, and all coops need to contain all necessary elements.
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Baby Chick House in Akron, Colorado
A good place to start any search is the internet. Simply plugging in the phrase "chicken coops for sale in Akron Colorado" 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 Akron Colorado chicken coops. What to look for when buying a chicken coop in Akron, Colorado With the big boost in poultry keeping there has actually been an equally huge surge in the array of poultry paraphernalia for sale. Chicken housing is an instance in factor. It's likewise a traditional example of the great old bandwagon being got on as numerous prospective poultry real estate professionals peddle an array of holiday accommodation asserting to be the excellent solution to your chicken real estate demands. Often the rate looks appealing, your house looks eye-catching, heck even the clean-cut family members standing there feeding the chickens look eye-catching. Undoubtedly they know a professional chicken house when they see one? There are several low-cost and also nasty coops flooding the marketplace. I know this as I've examined a variety of them in the field, and seen a ewe run straight through one when the feed container appeared. The outcome was just a costly pile of firewood and a little flock of bemused and also currently homeless bantams.
Chicken Coop On Wheels in Akron, Colorado
Typically these mass produced designs are built of rapid grown wood - come the very first decline of rain they swell, leaving you either defending a door that will not shut, or ripping the doorway furnishings off in a vain effort to release the squawking inhabitants. The first warm day indicates the wood dries as well as splits, the felt roof bubbles as well as boils, and also come nightfall the hens refuse to go in. This is not due to their disappointment at the decline of their once appealing apartment yet due to the fact that the hovel is now a sanctuary for, and also possibly abounding, the chicken keeper's bane, red mite. Add on that it said on the blurb that it would suit 4 large chickens when that equipping density was based upon the Circle Line at 5pm on a Friday, and exactly what are you left with? A number of joints as well as some kindling. A good coop for thee to 4 birds ought to cost you around ₤ 300 though this can depend upon whether you choose for a cost-free standing house or one with a run affixed. Assuming you are ranging your birds in a big room and also the pop hole doorway allows enough for the breed you keep, then the primary demands of housing come down to 3 factors which will define the variety of birds your house will certainly hold; perches, nest boxes as well as air flow. A lot of types of chicken will perch when they visit roost during the night, this perch needs to ideally be 5-8cm broad with smoothed off edges so the foot rests comfortably on it. The perch must be above the nest box entrance as chickens will likewise naturally search for the highest point to perch. A perch lower than that will have the birds roosting in the nest box overnight (which is incidentally when they create one of the most poo) bring about stained eggs the list below day. They should not however be so high off the floor of the house that leg injuries could possibly take place when the bird comes down in the early morning. Chickens need regarding 20cm of perch each (in little types this is clearly much less), plus if more than one perch is installed in your house they need to be greater 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 home ought to have a the very least one nest box for each three birds as well as these should be off the ground as well as in the darkest area of your house. Your home ought to have adequate air flow: without it then condensation will accumulate every evening, even in the coldest of weather. Realize, ventilation works with the principle of warm and comfortable air leaving via a high space drawing cooler air in from a reduced void - it's not a set of openings on opposite wall surfaces of the house as well as at the exact same level, this is just what's referred to as a draft. If you have a house with a run connected after that the points above are still true, but you must likewise think about the run size. The EU maximum legal equipping thickness for a cost-free array bird is (as well as allow's encounter it, among the motivations for maintaining some hens in the house is possibly boosted or better well-being) 2,500 birds per hectare, that's optimal one bird per 4m settled. Take a close consider some of the bargain homes - it could well be your house has the best perches, proper air flow and also ample nest boxes for a sensible variety of birds, but will each of the chickens have anything greater than an A4 sized piece of ground to spend the day on? And so as the saying goes, "you get exactly what you pay for". You might assume you've got hold of a deal, but you and also your group could possibly rue the day you did. Purchase the ideal house and also it will last for a few years, if not longer given the appropriate therapy. In the long run your fowl and your poultry keeping experience will be considerably the much better for it.plans coop
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