Chicken Coops for Sale in Pleasant Hill, Illinois
Chicken Coops for Sale in Pleasant Hill, Illinois
The Small Property Chicken Coop
Raising chickens has been one of the most rewarding activities that we’ve done on our homestead. While we don’t raise them for meat due to the city’s limitations, we reap an abundance of benefits from the eggs and the friendship we get from our girls.
In this next installment of , I’ll be sharing how my husband Todd designed and built Lucy and Ethel’s chicken coop using his ingenuity and minimal square footage on our .18 of an acre.
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, I was so excited to finally be able to raise a couple of my own “girls” to gather eggs from and get to know. I’m an animal lover, and seem to be able to make friends with any animal that will allow me, so I knew that these two sweet little chicks and I would be the best of friends. , and since there were only two of them, there was plenty of space for them to grow.
After moving some things around to set up our ‘barn’ area, Todd got to work on the chicken coop. Being a handy guy, he decided that he could design and build one that would be cheaper than a prefab one, as well as be able to fit where we needed it to on our small property homestead.
He chose to use the back of one of our sheds as the back wall, and another of our sheds as the side wall, which would save us some money on hardware cloth. He framed the rest of the coop and door with 2x4s. He also extended the side of the shed so that it would serve as the left wall of the coop.
This is the shed that is being used as the back wall of the coop. You can see on the right side of the shed where the new section was added for the left wall of the coop.
Todd designed the girls’ coop to be multi-level, rather than sprawling. He used plywood and 2x4s for the levels, and built an access ladder to both. The girls had a hard time not slipping on the sleek wood between the “steps” on the ladder, so I added a few strips of to those sections, which worked beautifully.
Here is a current photo of the two levels (please excuse the “lived in” look, I apparently hadn’t taken photos of the two levels when it was new). This is the top level, where we keep the girls’ nesting boxes. The ladder with the comes up the right side of this level, and it’s easy for the girls to hop up to the top of their nesting boxes, where they like to sleep at night. Todd also built a roost for them, which is actually a few inches offset from the edge of the level so when they poop, most of it falls to the ground.
Here is the second level, where the girls usually eat their evening treats, and where I keep their oyster shell and water (water not pictured). You can see how the ladder passes the second level up to the top level, which makes it easy for the girls to hop to the second level at snack time.
We left the bottom level as dirt, and I have been using the , which has worked out well for the most part. We haven’t had any issues with large rodents, and any mice that dare step foot into the coop are met with two hungry beaks.
Todd lined the front of the coop with 1″ hardware cloth and it has worked very well for us; however, I have heard that if you have issues with raccoons, it’s best to go with 1/2″ hardware cloth.
Another Space Saving Coop Idea
A friend of mine, Nora from , and is based on Todd’s multilevel chicken coop design. Their family has around 8-10 girls, so this brooder was a very good fit for them. It can definitely be built outdoors and used as a space-saving chicken coop for 1-3 chickens, or built indoors to use as a brooder for a larger flock.
As you can see, building a chicken coop to fit your small property needs can be a much better prospect than purchasing a prefab chicken coop. While prefab coops are beautiful and promise ease, tailoring your chicken coop to fit in just the right place on your small property can be more affordable, and in the long run, more convenient for your homestead setup. As long as your chicken coop meets , you can build a chicken coop that meets your homestead’s needed requirements as well, which will make everyone happy!
For more great information on raising chickens, please visit Fresh Eggs Daily’s Ultimate Chicken Care Guide.
What size is your property? Do you use space-saving techniques?
Chicken Coop Kits For Sale in Pleasant Hill, Illinois
A good place to start any search is the internet. Simply plugging in the phrase "chicken coops for sale in Pleasant Hill 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 Pleasant Hill Illinois chicken coops. What to look for when buying a chicken coop in Pleasant Hill, Illinois With the huge increase in poultry maintaining there has been a just as big increase in the variety of poultry paraphernalia on sale. Fowl housing is a case in factor. It's also a timeless instance of the excellent old bandwagon being got on as different would-be poultry real estate specialists peddle a range of holiday accommodation claiming to be the suitable solution to your chicken housing requirements. Commonly the price looks attractive, your diy-chicken-coop-planshome looks attractive, hell even the clean-cut household standing there feeding the chickens look eye-catching. Definitely they recognize a quality chicken house when they see one? There are several cheap and awful cages flooding the marketplace. I recognize this as I've examined a variety of them in the field, and also seen a ewe run straight through one when the feed pail showed up. The outcome was just a costly stack of fire wood and also a small flock of bemused and now homeless bantams.
Chicken Coop Run Plans in Pleasant Hill, Illinois
Typically these mass produced models are created of fast grown lumber - come the initial decline of rain they swell, leaving you either fortifying a doorway that will not shut, or tearing the door furnishings off in a vain attempt to launch the squawking inhabitants. The initial warm and comfortable day indicates the lumber dries as well as splits, the felt roof bubbles and boils, and come nightfall the hens refuse to go in. This is not as a result of their disappointment at the decrease of their as soon as attractive building but because the hovel is currently a sanctuary for, and also probably abounding, the poultry caretaker's nemesis, red mite. Add that it claimed on the blurb that it would certainly match four large chickens when that stocking density was based upon the Circle Line at 5pm on a Friday, and also exactly what are you left with? A couple of joints and some kindling. A good coop for thee to four birds should cost you approximately ₤ 300 though this could depend on whether you elect for a free standing house or one with a run connected. Thinking you are varying your birds in a big room as well as the pop hole door allows sufficient for the breed you keep, then the primary needs of housing come down to three factors which will define the variety of birds the house will hold; perches, nest boxes and air flow. Most breeds of chicken will certainly perch when they visit roost at night, this perch needs to ideally be 5-8cm broad with smoothed off edges so the foot rests pleasantly on it. The perch needs to be higher than the nest box entrance as chickens will also naturally seek 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 create the most poo) leading to dirtied eggs the following day. They shouldn't nonetheless be so high off the floor of the house that leg injuries can happen when the bird comes down in the morning. Chickens need about 20cm of perch each (in small breeds this is certainly 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 but are not that crazy about roosting with a beak in the bloomers of the bird in front. Ideally your house ought to have a least one nest box for each three birds and these must be off the ground as well as in the darkest location of your home. Your home should have adequate ventilation: without it after that condensation will build up every night, even in the chilliest of weather. Be aware, air flow deals with the concept of warm air leaving via a high gap attracting cooler air in from a reduced gap - it's not a set of openings on contrary wall surfaces of the house and also at the very same degree, this is just what's known as a draught. If you have a house with a run connected after that the points above are still real, but you ought to additionally consider the run size. The EU maximum lawful equipping thickness for a cost-free array bird is (and allow's face it, one of the inspirations for maintaining some hens at home is possibly improved or better welfare) 2,500 birds per hectare, that's maximum one bird each 4m squared. Take a close check out some of the deal houses - it could well be your house has the right perches, appropriate air flow and also enough nest boxes for a sensible variety of birds, yet will each of the chickens have anything greater than an A4 sized piece of ground to invest the day on? Therefore as the stating goes, "you obtain just what you spend for". You could believe you've grabbed a bargain, yet you and your group can rue the day you did. Purchase the ideal house as well as it will certainly last for a couple of years, if not longer given the correct treatment. In the end your chicken and your fowl maintaining encounter will certainly be a lot the better for it.plans coop
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