Chicken Coops for Sale in Oskaloosa, Kansas
Chicken Coops for Sale in Oskaloosa, Kansas
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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Chicken House in Oskaloosa, Kansas
A good place to start any search is the internet. Simply plugging in the phrase "chicken coops for sale in Oskaloosa 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 Oskaloosa Kansas chicken coops. What to look for when buying a chicken coop in Oskaloosa, Kansas With the massive boost in poultry maintaining there has been a just as large increase in the variety of chicken materiel on sale. Poultry real estate is a situation in factor. It's likewise a classic example of the good old bandwagon being got on as different prospective chicken real estate specialists peddle an array of lodging declaring to be the optimal solution to your chicken real estate requirements. Typically the rate looks appealing, the house looks desirable, heck even the clean-cut family standing there feeding the chickens look eye-catching. Definitely they recognize a quality chicken house when they see one? There are numerous cheap and also nasty cages swamping the marketplace. I recognize this as I've tested a variety of them in the field, as well as seen a ewe run straight through one when the feed container appeared. The outcome was nothing but an expensive pile of firewood and also a little flock of bemused and also currently homeless bantams.
Baby Chicken in Oskaloosa, Kansas
More often than not these standardized designs are built of quick grown lumber - come the first drop of rainfall they swell, leaving you either defending a doorway that won't close, or ripping the doorway furniture off in a vain effort to launch the squawking residents. The very first warm and comfortable day means the timber dries as well as fractures, the felt roofing system bubbles and boils, and come nightfall the chickens refuse to go in. This is not as a result of their dissatisfaction at the decrease of their once eye-catching property yet considering that the hovel is now a haven for, and also probably abounding, the chicken caretaker's bane, red mite. Add that it stated on the blurb that it would suit 4 big hens when that stocking thickness was based on the Circle Line at 5pm on a Friday, and also exactly what are you left with? A couple of joints as well as some kindling. A respectable coop for thee to 4 birds need to cost you approximately ₤ 300 though this could rely on whether you elect for a complimentary standing house or one with a run connected. Presuming you are ranging your birds in a large space and the pop opening doorway allows sufficient for the breed you maintain, after that the main demands of housing boil down to three points which will certainly define the variety of birds your home will hold; perches, nest boxes and air flow. The majority of types of chicken will perch when they visit roost in the evening, this perch needs to preferably be 5-8cm vast with smoothed off sides so the foot sits pleasantly on it. The perch ought to be more than the nest box access as chickens will also naturally try to find the acme to perch. A perch less than that will have the birds roosting in the nest box overnight (which is by the way when they create the most poo) causing stained eggs the list below day. They shouldn't nevertheless be so high off the flooring of your house that leg injuries could occur when the bird comes down in the early morning. Chickens need regarding 20cm of perch each (in little breeds this is undoubtedly much less), plus if more than one perch is installed in your home they must 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 in front. Preferably your 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 in the darkest area of the house. The house needs to have sufficient air flow: without it after that condensation will certainly accumulate every night, also in the coldest of weather. Realize, air flow deals with the concept of warm and comfortable air leaving via a high space attracting cooler air in from a lower gap - it's not a set of openings on contrary walls of the house as well as at the very same degree, this is just what's called a draft. If you have a house with a run connected then the factors above are still true, however you should additionally think about the run dimension. The EU maximum legal stocking density for a free range bird is (and allow's face it, one of the motivations for keeping some chickens in the house is possibly enhanced or better well-being) 2,500 birds each hectare, that's optimal one bird each 4m made even. Take a close consider some of the deal homes - it could well be your home has the right perches, right ventilation as well as enough nest boxes for a sensible number of birds, but will each of the chickens have anything greater than an A4 sized piece of ground to spend the day on? And so as the claiming goes, "you get exactly what you spend for". You may believe you've grabbed a deal, yet you as well as your flock might rue the day you did. Purchase the appropriate house and also it will last for a few decades, otherwise longer offered the correct treatment. In the end your chicken and your fowl maintaining encounter will certainly be a lot the better for it.coop chicken
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