Chicken Coops for Sale in Horton, Kansas
Chicken Coops for Sale in Horton, Kansas
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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Baby Chickens For Sale in Horton, Kansas
A good place to start any search is the internet. Simply plugging in the phrase "chicken coops for sale in Horton Kansas" 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 Horton Kansas chicken coops. What to look for when buying a chicken coop in Horton, Kansas With the significant boost in chicken maintaining there has been a similarly big surge in the range of poultry materiel for sale. Fowl real estate is an instance in factor. It's additionally a timeless instance of the good old bandwagon being got on as different prospective chicken real estate professionals peddle a selection of holiday accommodation asserting to be the perfect solution to your chicken housing demands. Often the price looks eye-catching, your house looks attractive, heck even the clean-cut household standing there feeding the chickens look eye-catching. Definitely they recognize a professional chicken house when they see one? There are lots of affordable and also unpleasant coops swamping the market. I know this as I've examined a number of them in the area, and also seen a ewe run directly with one when the feed container appeared. The result was just an expensive stack of fire wood as well as a small group of bemused as well as now homeless bantams.
Chicken Coop Amazon in Horton, Kansas
Usually these standardized designs are created of rapid grown up hardwood - come the initial decline of rain they swell, leaving you either fortifying a doorway that will not close, or ripping the door furniture off in a vain effort to launch the squawking residents. The initial warm and comfortable day implies the lumber dries and also fractures, the really felt roofing system bubbles and boils, as well as come nightfall the hens refuse to enter. This is not because of their frustration at the decline of their when appealing home however due to the fact that the hovel is now a sanctuary for, and also most likely crawling with, the fowl keeper's bane, red mite. Add the fact that it said on the blurb that it would suit 4 big chickens when that stocking density was based upon the Circle Line at 5pm on a Friday, and just what are you left with? A couple of joints and some kindling. A respectable coop for thee to 4 birds should cost you around ₤ 300 though this can depend on whether you choose for a totally free standing house or one with a run connected. Presuming you are varying your birds in a big space as well as the pop opening door allows sufficient for the type you maintain, then the primary demands of real estate boil down to three factors which will certainly define the variety of birds the house will certainly hold; perches, nest boxes and also air flow. Many breeds of chicken will certainly perch when they go to roost during the night, this perch must ideally be 5-8cm wide with smoothed off sides so the foot sits conveniently on it. The perch ought to be above the nest box entry as chickens will also normally look for the acme to perch. A perch below that will certainly have the birds roosting in the nest box over night (which is by the way when they generate one of the most poo) leading to stained eggs the following day. They shouldn't nevertheless be so high off the floor of the house that leg injuries can occur when the bird comes down in the morning. Chickens need regarding 20cm of perch each (in small breeds this is certainly less), plus if more than one perch is mounted in your house they should be more than 30cm apart. They will certainly 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. Ideally your home ought to have a least one nest box for every 3 birds as well as these need to be off the ground and also in the darkest area of your home. Your home needs to have sufficient air flow: without it after that condensation will accumulate every evening, even in the chilliest of weather condition. Understand, ventilation deals with the principle of warm and comfortable air leaving via a high space drawing cooler air in from a reduced gap - it's not a set of holes on opposite walls of your house and at the very same level, this is just what's called a draft. If you have a house with a run connected after that the points above are still true, but you must also consider the run size. The EU maximum lawful equipping thickness for a totally free array bird is (and also allow's encounter it, one of the motivations for maintaining some hens in the house is perhaps enhanced or far better welfare) 2,500 birds per hectare, that's optimal one bird each 4m made even. Take a close take a look at several of the deal homes - it could well be your house has the best perches, proper ventilation as well as enough nest boxes for a sensible number of birds, however will each of the chickens have anything more than an A4 sized piece of ground to spend the day on? Therefore as the stating goes, "you obtain exactly what you pay for". You may think you've got a deal, however you and your flock might rue the day you did. Acquisition the ideal house and it will certainly last for a few years, otherwise longer provided the correct treatment. In the end your poultry and your fowl maintaining encounter will certainly be a lot the far better for it.diy chick
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