Chicken Coops for Sale in Carlinville, Illinois
Chicken Coops for Sale in Carlinville, Illinois
Our Chicken Coop Design – Front Elevation (Part 2 of 3)
Okay, I lied. I had hoped to finish up writing on our chicken coop design with this post, but I ran out of time and markers…seriously – my gray marker ran out. So today I’m going to focus on the front elevation and next week I’ll wrap it up with the other 3 elevations.
Front Elevation of the Coop
When designing your coop you really need to think through ventilation for a number of reasons: respiratory health of the chickens; drying out the moisture and their manure keeps down the smells and the potential of the hens getting sick. I made ours super-ventilated by covering the entire front of our coop with hardware cloth. We may have gone overboard, but it’s better to err on the side of too much ventilation in a coop than too little…and because Atlanta has a fairly temperate climate, I think we’re good. That said, you do have to consider strong winds – particularly in the colder months. That’s why Britt and I crafted Roman shade-like curtains out of painter’s drop cloths for the front and the windows on the other 3 sides of the coop. It was quite inexpensive and fairly easy to do…particularly if you strategically use the hems already sewn in. These curtains will give our ladies a refuge from the cold winds – protecting the exposed areas of their bodies (combs, wattles, and feet).
Here are a few other things to note about the front elevation of our coop:
- Again, entire area is covered in hardware cloth. I could have used chicken wire on the top (bottom needs hardware cloth to keep out critters), but I had enough hardware cloth and I thought it looked better for the entire area to be consistent.
- The height of the walls are 6.5’…which is plenty high (for me at least) to be able to walk through the door…and there is plenty of height inside, since there is no ceiling (just the rafters and tin roof above).
- 24″ doors were constructed out of pressure-treated wood and painted the same color as the doors of our home.
- To clean things up a bit and to cover up where the pieces of hardware cloth met, I added 1″ trim on the outside of each 2×4 and painted it and the siding of the rest of the coop the same color gray as our house.
- We used gate latches as handles. If you do as well, make sure you make it so that you won’t get locked in when the doors close. To do that, I simply drilled a hole just above the latch and attached a long, thin chain that I threaded through the hole…allowing me to open the latch from inside. Don’t use string or twine…I found that out the hard way. String will wear out and break – leaving you stranded inside. Fortunately when it happened to me, one of my girls was within shouting distance.
- We were running out of hardware cloth when we were finishing the gable, so we simply filled in the middle space with a board and painted it gray. To make sense of this oddly proportioned space and to bring a little bit of character to the coop, I hung a set of antlers from a Mule Deer I shot several years ago with my dad in Wyoming.
So there’s the front elevation. We are really pleased with it…it’s done what we set out to do – make a more than livable space for our chickens (and bunny), while still being attractive. Now we may be a bit too particular, but I really think having an attractive coop in a nice setting has made raising chickens not only sustainable, but more enjoyable. So sure, you could build a coop that is purely functional, but if it looks like a hunk of junk, is that really something you want to see every day…sometimes several times? We thought not.
Next week I’ll wrap things up on our chicken coop design…but until then, please let me know if you have any other questions about our coop or raising chickens. I could perhaps work my answers into the next post.
Take care,
PS: Here are the links to and of Our Chicken Coop Design…and the link to .
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Chicken Coop For 4 Chickens in Carlinville, Illinois
A good place to start any search is the internet. Simply plugging in the phrase "chicken coops for sale in Carlinville Illinois" 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 Carlinville Illinois chicken coops. What to look for when buying a chicken coop in Carlinville, Illinois With the substantial increase in chicken keeping there has actually been a similarly big increase in the array of chicken materiel on sale. Chicken real estate is an instance in point. It's also a timeless instance of the good old bandwagon being jumped on as various potential chicken housing specialists pitch a variety of cottage asserting to be the suitable remedy to your chicken housing requirements. Frequently the rate looks desirable, your diy-chicken-coop-planshome looks appealing, hell also the clean-cut family standing there feeding the chickens look appealing. Surely they know a top quality chicken house when they see one? There are several inexpensive and horrible cages swamping the market. I recognize this as I've examined a number of them in the field, as well as seen a ewe run straight with one when the feed pail showed up. The outcome was only an expensive heap of firewood as well as a tiny flock of bemused and also currently homeless bantams.
Chicken Coop Roost Ideas in Carlinville, Illinois
Most of the time these standardized designs are built of fast grown hardwood - come the initial decline of rain they swell, leaving you either fortifying a doorway that won't close, or ripping the doorway furniture off in a vain effort to launch the squawking inhabitants. The first warm day indicates the timber dries out and also splits, the really felt roof covering bubbles and boils, as well as come nightfall the chickens refuse to enter. This is not because of their frustration at the decrease of their when eye-catching residential property but since the hovel is now a place for, and probably abounding, the poultry keeper's bane, red mite. Add the fact that it claimed on the blurb that it would certainly fit 4 large chickens when that stocking density was based on the Circle Line at 5pm on a Friday, and also what are you left with? A number of hinges and some kindling. A good coop for thee to four birds need to cost you in the region of ₤ 300 though this can depend on whether you choose for a complimentary standing house or one with a run connected. Presuming you are ranging your birds in a huge space and the pop hole door is big enough for the type you maintain, after that the primary demands of housing boil down to three factors which will define the number of birds your home will hold; perches, nest boxes and ventilation. The majority of types of chicken will perch when they go to roost during the night, this perch needs to ideally be 5-8cm broad with smoothed off edges so the foot rests pleasantly on it. The perch ought to be more than the nest box access as chickens will also normally seek the highest point to perch. A perch below that will have the birds roosting in the nest box overnight (which is incidentally when they generate the most poo) causing dirtied eggs the following day. They shouldn't however be so high off the floor of the house that leg injuries might take place when the bird comes down in the early morning. Chickens require concerning 20cm of perch each (in little types this is undoubtedly much less), plus if more than one perch is mounted in your home they must be more than 30cm apart. They will hunker up with their next-door neighbors yet are not that keen on roosting with a beak in the bloomers of the bird in front. Preferably the house must have a the very least one nest box for each three birds and these ought to be off the ground and in the darkest location of the house. The house ought to have adequate ventilation: without it after that condensation will certainly accumulate every evening, also in the coldest of weather condition. Understand, air flow works with the principle of warm air leaving with a high void attracting cooler air in from a reduced gap - it's not a set of openings on other wall surfaces of the house and also at the exact same level, this is just what's referred to as a draft. If you have a house with a run affixed after that the points above are still true, however you ought to also consider the run dimension. The EU optimum lawful stocking density for a complimentary array bird is (and let's face it, among the inspirations for keeping some hens in your home is perhaps enhanced or far better welfare) 2,500 birds per hectare, that's maximum one bird per 4m settled. Take a close consider a few of the bargain houses - it could well be your home has the right perches, correct air flow as well as sufficient nest boxes for a practical number of birds, yet will each of the chickens have anything greater than an A4 sized item of ground to spend the day on? And so as the stating goes, "you get what you pay for". You might believe you've grabbed a bargain, but you as well as your flock can rue the day you did. Purchase the ideal house as well as it will last for a couple of decades, if not longer offered the appropriate treatment. In the end your chicken and your chicken maintaining experience will certainly be considerably the much better for it.chick chickens
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