Chicken Coops for Sale in Sugar City, Colorado
Chicken Coops for Sale in Sugar City, 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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Chicken Coop Supplies in Sugar City, Colorado
A good place to start any search is the internet. Simply plugging in the phrase "chicken coops for sale in Sugar City 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 Sugar City Colorado chicken coops. What to look for when buying a chicken coop in Sugar City, Colorado With the substantial increase in chicken maintaining there has actually been a just as big rise in the range of fowl paraphernalia for sale. Poultry housing is an instance in point. It's likewise a classic example of the excellent old bandwagon being jumped on as various would-be poultry real estate specialists peddle a range of accommodation claiming to be the optimal remedy to your chicken housing needs. Usually the rate looks appealing, your house looks eye-catching, heck even the clean-cut family standing there feeding the chickens look appealing. Definitely they understand a high quality chicken house when they see one? There are numerous low-cost and also unpleasant cages flooding the market. I recognize this as I've tested a variety of them in the area, and seen a ewe run straight via one when the feed bucket appeared. The result was just a pricey pile of firewood and also a tiny group of bemused and also currently homeless bantams.
Chicken Coop Pallets in Sugar City, Colorado
Usually these standardized versions are created of rapid grown up lumber - come the very first decrease of rain they swell, leaving you either blockading a door that won't shut, or tearing the doorway furnishings off in a vain effort to release the squawking inhabitants. The very first warm day indicates the wood dries and fractures, the felt roofing system bubbles and also boils, and also come nightfall the chickens choose not to go in. This is not because of their dissatisfaction at the decline of their as soon as desirable commercial property but because the hovel is currently a place for, and possibly abounding, the fowl keeper's nemesis, red mite. Add that it said on the blurb that it would suit 4 huge chickens when that equipping density was based upon the Circle Line at 5pm on a Friday, as well as exactly what are you left with? A number of joints as well as some kindling. A good coop for thee to 4 birds need to cost you approximately ₤ 300 though this can rely on whether you elect for a totally free standing house or one with a run connected. Assuming you are ranging your birds in a huge space and also the pop hole door allows enough for the type you maintain, then the major demands of real estate come down to three factors which will specify the number of birds the house will certainly hold; perches, nest boxes as well as air flow. A lot of types of chicken will certainly perch when they go to roost in the evening, this perch needs to ideally be 5-8cm vast with smoothed off edges so the foot rests conveniently on it. The perch needs to be higher than the nest box entrance as chickens will additionally normally look for the highest point to perch. A perch less 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) resulting in stained eggs the following day. They should not nevertheless be so high off the flooring of the house that leg injuries can occur when the bird comes down in the early morning. Chickens require regarding 20cm of perch each (in little breeds this is clearly less), plus if more than one perch is mounted in your house they should be more than 30cm apart. They will hunker up with their neighbors yet are not that keen on roosting with a beak in the bloomers of the bird in front. Ideally your home ought to have a the very least one nest box for every 3 birds and these need to be off the ground as well as in the darkest location of the house. The house ought to have ample ventilation: without it after that condensation will accumulate every night, even in the coldest of weather condition. Realize, ventilation works with the principle of warm and comfortable air leaving via a high void drawing cooler air in from a reduced gap - it's not a set of openings on opposite walls of your house as well as at the same degree, this is exactly what's known as a draft. If you have a house with a run affixed after that the points above are still real, yet you must likewise consider the run dimension. The EU optimum legal equipping thickness for a totally free variety bird is (and allow's encounter it, one of the inspirations for maintaining some chickens at home is potentially enhanced or better welfare) 2,500 birds each hectare, that's maximum one bird each 4m made even. Take a close check out a few of the deal residences - it could well be the house has the appropriate perches, appropriate air flow and also enough nest boxes for a practical variety of birds, yet will each of the chickens have anything more than an A4 sized piece of ground to spend the day on? And so as the stating goes, "you obtain what you pay for". You might believe you've got a deal, but you as well as your group could rue the day you did. Purchase the ideal house and it will certainly last for a couple of years, if not longer offered the right therapy. In the long run your poultry and your chicken maintaining experience will certainly be considerably the much better for it.plans plan
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