Chicken Coops for Sale in Loves Park, Illinois
Chicken Coops for Sale in Loves Park, Illinois
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!
© The REAL Housewives of Riverton, 2011-2016. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s authors and/or owners is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to The REAL Housewives of Riverton with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Chicken Coop Yard Design in Loves Park, Illinois
A good place to start any search is the internet. Simply plugging in the phrase "chicken coops for sale in Loves Park 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 Loves Park Illinois chicken coops. What to look for when buying a chicken coop in Loves Park, Illinois With the significant boost in poultry maintaining there has actually been an equally big increase in the range of poultry paraphernalia on sale. Fowl housing is a case in point. It's also a timeless example of the great old bandwagon being got on as numerous potential poultry real estate professionals pitch an array of holiday accommodation declaring to be the ideal solution to your chicken real estate demands. Commonly the price looks attractive, your house looks desirable, hell even the clean-cut family standing there feeding the chickens look attractive. Undoubtedly they understand a quality chicken house when they see one? There are several low-cost and also nasty cages swamping the market. I know this as I've examined a variety of them in the area, and also seen a ewe run straight via one when the feed pail appeared. The outcome was only a costly stack of fire wood as well as a little flock of bemused and currently homeless bantams.
Baby Chicks in Loves Park, Illinois
Generally these mass produced designs are built of quick grown up hardwood - come the very first drop of rainfall they swell, leaving you either blockading a doorway that won't shut, or tearing the doorway furnishings off in a vain effort to release the squawking residents. The initial warm day indicates the lumber dries as well as fractures, the felt roof bubbles and also boils, and come nightfall the chickens refuse to go in. This is not due to their disappointment at the decline of their once desirable home yet considering that the hovel is currently a sanctuary for, and most likely crawling with, the fowl caretaker's nemesis, red mite. Add on the fact that it said on the blurb that it would fit 4 large hens when that equipping density was based on the Circle Line at 5pm on a Friday, and also just what are you entrusted? A number of joints as well as some kindling. A decent coop for thee to four birds ought to cost you approximately ₤ 300 though this can depend on whether you elect for a free standing house or one with a run affixed. Presuming you are varying your birds in a huge space and also the pop opening door allows sufficient for the type you maintain, then the major demands of housing boil down to three points which will specify the variety of birds your home will certainly hold; perches, nest boxes as well as air flow. The majority of breeds of chicken will certainly perch when they go to roost at night, this perch needs to preferably be 5-8cm large with smoothed off sides so the foot rests comfortably on it. The perch ought to be higher than the nest box access 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 over night (which is incidentally when they produce one of the most poo) resulting in dirtied eggs the following day. They should not however be so high off the flooring of your home that leg injuries could possibly occur when the bird gets down in the early morning. Chickens require concerning 20cm of perch each (in tiny types this is certainly much less), plus if more than one perch is mounted in the house they ought to be more than 30cm apart. They will hunker up with their neighbors but are not that crazy about roosting with a beak in the bloomers of the bird in front. Preferably your house ought to have a the very least one nest box for every single 3 birds and also these must be off the ground and also in the darkest location of your home. The house needs to have adequate ventilation: without it then condensation will certainly build up every evening, also in the coldest of climate. Be aware, ventilation deals with the principle of warm air leaving with a high gap attracting cooler air in from a reduced void - 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 referred to as a draught. If you have a house with a run connected after that the points above are still real, but you must also consider the run size. The EU maximum lawful equipping thickness for a cost-free range bird is (and also allow's encounter it, among the inspirations for maintaining some chickens in your home is perhaps improved or better welfare) 2,500 birds per hectare, that's maximum one bird per 4m made even. Take a close check out a few of the bargain homes - it could well be your home has the appropriate perches, right air flow as well as sufficient nest boxes for an affordable variety of birds, but will each of the chickens have anything greater than an A4 sized item of ground to spend the day on? And so as the saying goes, "you obtain what you spend for". You could believe you've got a bargain, but you and your flock might rue the day you did. Acquisition the right house and it will last for a couple of years, otherwise longer given the proper treatment. Eventually your chicken as well as your fowl keeping encounter will certainly be considerably the far better for it.coops diy
More Posts
Chicken Coops for Sale in Eldorado, Illinois
Chicken Coops for Sale in Farmersville, Illinois
Chicken Coops for Sale in Chesterfield, Illinois
Chicken Coops for Sale in Cullom, Illinois
Chicken Coops for Sale in Bushnell, Illinois