Chicken Coops for Sale in Sesser, Illinois
Chicken Coops for Sale in Sesser, Illinois
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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Baby Chick House in Sesser, Illinois
A good place to start any search is the internet. Simply plugging in the phrase "chicken coops for sale in Sesser 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 Sesser Illinois chicken coops. What to look for when buying a chicken coop in Sesser, Illinois With the huge rise in chicken maintaining there has actually been a similarly huge increase in the variety of fowl materiel on sale. Chicken housing is an instance in factor. It's likewise a traditional instance of the great old bandwagon being got on as numerous would-be chicken real estate professionals market a variety of cottage claiming to be the perfect solution to your chicken housing demands. Usually the cost looks desirable, your house looks appealing, hell even the clean-cut household standing there feeding the chickens look appealing. Surely they understand a top quality chicken house when they see one? There are lots of economical and also nasty cages swamping the marketplace. I recognize this as I've examined a variety of them in the area, and seen a ewe run straight with one when the feed bucket showed up. The outcome was just a pricey heap of fire wood and a tiny group of bemused and now homeless bantams.
Chicken Coop You Can Walk In in Sesser, Illinois
Generally these standardized designs are constructed of rapid grown up timber - come the very first drop of rainfall they swell, leaving you either blockading a door that won't close, or ripping the door furniture off in a vain effort to launch the squawking citizens. The first warm and comfortable day means the timber dries out and also cracks, the felt roofing system bubbles and also boils, and also come nightfall the hens refuse to enter. This is not due to their disappointment at the decline of their when attractive home however since the hovel is currently a place for, as well as possibly crawling with, the poultry caretaker's nemesis, red mite. Add that it claimed on the blurb that it would fit 4 huge hens when that equipping thickness was based on the Circle Line at 5pm on a Friday, and also what are you left with? A couple of hinges and some kindling. A decent coop for thee to four birds must cost you around ₤ 300 though this can depend on whether you elect for a totally free standing house or one with a run attached. Thinking you are ranging your birds in a large area as well as the pop opening doorway is big sufficient for the breed you maintain, after that the primary requirements of real estate boil down to 3 factors which will define the number of birds the house will certainly hold; perches, nest boxes and also ventilation. Most types of chicken will certainly perch when they visit roost in the evening, this perch ought to preferably be 5-8cm large with smoothed off edges so the foot sits pleasantly on it. The perch should be higher than the nest box entrance as chickens will additionally normally look for the acme to perch. A perch lower than that will certainly have the birds roosting in the nest box over night (which is by the way when they produce the most poo) resulting in dirtied eggs the list below day. They should not nevertheless be so high off the flooring of your house that leg injuries might happen when the bird comes 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 your house they should be greater than 30cm apart. They will hunker up with their next-door neighbors but are not that crazy about roosting with a beak in the bloomers of the bird ahead. Preferably the house should have a the very least one nest box for each three birds as well as these ought to be off the ground and also in the darkest location of your house. Your home should have ample air flow: without it after that condensation will accumulate every night, also in the chilliest of climate. Be aware, ventilation deals with the principle of cozy air leaving through a high space drawing cooler air in from a lower gap - it's not a set of openings on other walls of your house and also at the exact same level, this is just what's known as a draft. If you have a house with a run affixed after that the points above are still true, yet you must also consider the run size. The EU maximum legal equipping thickness for a cost-free array bird is (and also allow's encounter it, one of the motivations for keeping some hens in your home is potentially enhanced or better welfare) 2,500 birds each hectare, that's maximum one bird each 4m squared. Take a close consider several of the bargain houses - it could well be your home has the right perches, right air flow and also enough nest boxes for an affordable variety of birds, yet will each of the chickens have anything more than an A4 sized item of ground to spend the day on? Therefore as the saying goes, "you get just what you pay for". You could think you've grabbed a bargain, yet you and your flock could rue the day you did. Acquisition the right house and also it will last for a couple of decades, if not longer provided the correct therapy. Ultimately your poultry and your fowl maintaining encounter will certainly be considerably the much better for it.for sale chick
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