Chicken Coops for Sale in Shawnee, Colorado
Chicken Coops for Sale in Shawnee, Colorado
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 Ideas in Shawnee, Colorado
A good place to start any search is the internet. Simply plugging in the phrase "chicken coops for sale in Shawnee 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 Shawnee Colorado chicken coops. What to look for when buying a chicken coop in Shawnee, Colorado With the big increase in chicken keeping there has actually been an equally big increase in the variety of poultry paraphernalia on sale. Chicken real estate is a case in point. It's likewise a classic instance of the great old bandwagon being jumped on as different potential fowl real estate professionals market a selection of lodging declaring to be the optimal solution to your chicken housing demands. Commonly the price looks attractive, your diy-chicken-coop-planshome looks attractive, hell even the clean-cut family standing there feeding the chickens look attractive. Certainly they understand a quality chicken house when they see one? There are several cheap as well as horrible coops swamping the market. I understand this as I've examined a number of them in the field, as well as seen a ewe run straight through one when the feed bucket showed up. The result was nothing but an expensive pile of firewood and a small group of bemused as well as now homeless bantams.
Chicken Coop Door in Shawnee, Colorado
Generally these mass produced versions are built of fast grown lumber - come the initial drop of rain they swell, leaving you either defending a doorway that will not shut, or tearing the door furniture off in a vain attempt to release the squawking inhabitants. The first warm and comfortable day suggests the hardwood dries out and cracks, the felt roofing system bubbles and boils, as well as come nightfall the hens refuse to enter. This is not because of their frustration at the decrease of their when attractive property yet since the hovel is currently a sanctuary for, and most likely abounding, the fowl caretaker's nemesis, red mite. Add the fact that it stated on the blurb that it would suit four large chickens when that equipping density was based upon the Circle Line at 5pm on a Friday, and also exactly what are you left with? A few joints and also some kindling. A respectable coop for thee to four birds must cost you around ₤ 300 though this can rely on whether you elect for a cost-free standing house or one with a run attached. Presuming you are ranging your birds in a large room and the pop opening doorway is big enough for the breed you maintain, then the primary demands of housing boil down to three factors which will certainly define the variety of birds your house will hold; perches, nest boxes and ventilation. A lot of types of chicken will certainly perch when they go to roost in the evening, this perch should ideally be 5-8cm broad with smoothed off sides so the foot sits comfortably on it. The perch should be above the nest box access as chickens will certainly also naturally try to find the highest point to perch. A perch less than that will have the birds roosting in the nest box overnight (which is by the way when they generate the most poo) leading to dirtied eggs the following day. They shouldn't nevertheless be so high off the flooring of your house that leg injuries could happen when the bird gets down in the early morning. Chickens require concerning 20cm of perch each (in small breeds this is certainly much less), plus if more than one perch is mounted in your house they should be greater than 30cm apart. They will certainly hunker up with their next-door neighbors but are not that keen on roosting with a beak in the bloomers of the bird in front. Ideally your home ought to have a least one nest box for every single three birds and also these should be off the ground and in the darkest area of the house. The house ought to have adequate ventilation: without it after that condensation will certainly develop every night, also in the coldest of weather condition. Understand, air flow deals with the principle of warm air leaving through a high space drawing cooler air in from a reduced space - it's not a set of openings on contrary wall surfaces of your house and at the very same level, this is exactly what's called a draft. If you have a house with a run attached then the factors above are still real, however you need to also think about the run size. The EU maximum lawful stocking density for a complimentary array bird is (as well as let's face it, among the motivations for keeping some hens in your home is perhaps boosted or far better well-being) 2,500 birds per hectare, that's optimal one bird per 4m settled. Take a close check out several of the deal houses - it could well be your home has the best perches, correct air flow and sufficient nest boxes for a sensible variety of birds, but will each of the chickens have anything more than an A4 sized item of ground to invest the day on? Therefore as the stating goes, "you get what you spend for". You might believe you've grabbed a bargain, but you and your flock might rue the day you did. Purchase the right house and it will last for a few decades, if not longer given the right therapy. In the end your fowl and your chicken maintaining encounter will be much the far better for it.chick diy
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