Chicken Coops for Sale in Washington, Louisiana
Chicken Coops for Sale in Washington, Louisiana
Eggs! Raise Your Own Hens In A Chicken Coop Built From Scrap
From a long line of egg farmers in Holland, Karin’s dad finally builds her a chicken coop
Where bylaws allow, or can be bypassed, I highly recommend building your own chicken coop. Imagine getting fresh, free-range organic eggs every day? When my parents came to visit me in Jaffa a few months ago, Dad found himself bored. Back in Holland, my family the Van Der Meers were one of the biggest egg producers in the country before the Depression. So you could say, eggs are in our genes. With Dad nothing to do for a few weeks, I brought up the idea of having him build me a chicken coop. That got him kind of excited. He foraged for wood in my backyard and came up with a coop that resembles a bus stop. The Chicken Express? Step right up and I’ll tell you how to build a coop in a few easy steps. And no you don’t have to invest much, unless you want to make your coop designer.
In warm climates very little is needed to keep your hens happy – basically a roof over their heads, a lengthwise pole for curling their toes around when they sleep at night (you might want to raise it high where feral cats might stalk your chickens), and some fencing to keep them from, well, flying the coop.
Here are our chickens before we bought them.
As it turns out, Bedouin chickens which we bought in the Negev Desert, are very agile creatures and even sleep in our blackberry tree some nights. The fencing doesn’t help them that much, but it does keep them contained somewhat, and out of the mouth of our crazy dog.
Here’s what you’ll need to build the coop:
- A corner on your roof, garden, or backyard for the chicken coop, a couple meters by a couple meters at least
- An old door or piece of plywood for a roof
- Some plywood for the sides
- Chicken wire, if you want to contain the chickens outside the coop (they eat weeds so consider letting them run loose)
- A wooden pole
- Some boxes, or crates for roosting. Throw in something soft.
- Feed
Find a corner to build against, saving yourself the need to build 2 extra walls. Be lazy. Make sure there’s a roof for the chickens to protect them against the sun, and rain, and in the winter if it gets cold, you can throw a carpet over the sides to keep the cold wind out. Make sure they have three walls.
We built a 2 meter or so pole, installed horizontally, down low about 50 cm off the ground but noticed some street cats were preying on our hens and raised the pole to about 1.5 meters off the ground. Most chickens can fly to this height but see what works for yours. It really doesn’t take much to make your chickens happy. But they do need a pole to sleep on at night.
What you feed your chickens:
- A basic seed/corn meal
- Compost – can include eggshells (ours really love labane cheese – could be because they are Bedouin hens)
- Garden weeds and greens (let them go wild!)
- Worms and bugs (they feed themselves while aerating the ground)
- Endless supply of water
Chickens do need basic feed, that which can be bought at a feedlot. Some inquiring around on where to find chickens and feed might be in order. Animal markets for livestock might be your best bet. Ask around in places like that. We bought a huge drum of feed consisting of corn meal and other seeds, and feed our chickens a regular diet of all the vegetable-based compost that would otherwise be composted. But don’t worry. Chicken doo makes an excellent compost too. One of my friends can’t eat eggs unless they are free-range and fed with organic oats. So it’s really up to you to decide how to feed your chickens, depending on your health needs and sensitivities.
We have five chickens and one rooster. The rooster is just for the fun of it. You don’t need one if you have neighbors nearby who will complain about the noise. And roosters DO make noise, waking us up as early as 1:30 am.
Bedouin women (crouching like crows) selling “bede” hens at the market
Unlike commercially-raised chickens, our hens don’t get “sunshine” 24 hours a day. Some parts of the year the chickens won’t lay. They will molt and take a break. And not every chicken will lay every day once she starts. We bought young chickens and it took them a couple of months to start laying. Now three of the five are laying, but like I said, not every day.
See a video interview with my dad about chickens
We bought our chickens at a Bedouin market (for about $10 each) because it was important for my husband that we have a “wild” variety – chickens that haven’t been genetically manipulated. Our eggs are on the small to medium size, the yolks absolutely huge compared to the white. One hen is laying eggs with the most delightful little beige specks on them.
Dad (left), the closest link to my family of egg people is determined that next time he comes to visit me in the Middle East he’ll be smuggling in white hen eggs – “the real good layers” – from Canada. He keeps asking me about building an incubator for these eggs to become hatchlings. Hopefully it will happen and when it does, I’ll report it here on Green Prophet.
Meanwhile, I am dreaming about how many eggs I will collect tomorrow. And how exciting it will be for my little baby daughter, when she gets bigger, to go out and collect them like I did when I was a little girl (that’s me in the top photo). My family had a coop in a suburban town outside Toronto until our evil neighbour complained and we had to get rid of it.
Before the complaints, I would go out and collect our eggs and sell them to our neighbors for a dollar a dozen, to cover the price of feed. Seriously, it was so much fun. If this blogger, and lazy environmentalist who is addicted to the computer can start a coop, you can too. Get cracking and join the new movement of urban farming.
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Chicken Coop Sale in Washington, Louisiana
A good place to start any search is the internet. Simply plugging in the phrase "chicken coops for sale in Washington Louisiana" 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 Washington Louisiana chicken coops. What to look for when buying a chicken coop in Washington, Louisiana With the massive increase in chicken keeping there has been a similarly large rise in the variety of chicken paraphernalia for sale. Poultry real estate is a proceedings in factor. It's likewise a timeless example of the excellent old bandwagon being jumped on as various would-be fowl housing professionals market a selection of lodging asserting to be the ideal remedy to your chicken housing needs. Frequently the rate looks eye-catching, your diy-chicken-coop-planshome looks appealing, heck even the clean-cut family standing there feeding the chickens look appealing. Certainly they understand a high quality chicken house when they see one? There are numerous low-cost as well as unpleasant cages flooding the market. I understand this as I've examined a variety of them in the field, and also seen a ewe run straight through one when the feed container appeared. The outcome was just an expensive stack of firewood and also a tiny flock of bemused and now homeless bantams.
Chicken Coop Guides in Washington, Louisiana
Typically these standardized versions are built of rapid grown lumber - come the initial drop of rainfall they swell, leaving you either fortifying a doorway that will not shut, or ripping the door furnishings off in a vain attempt to launch the squawking citizens. The first warm and comfortable day means the hardwood dries and splits, the felt roof covering bubbles and boils, as well as come nightfall the chickens refuse to go in. This is not because of their disappointment at the decline of their once eye-catching commercial property however due to the fact that the hovel is currently a haven for, and most likely abounding, the fowl caretaker's bane, red mite. Add on that it claimed on the blurb that it would certainly match 4 big chickens when that stocking thickness was based upon the Circle Line at 5pm on a Friday, and what are you entrusted? A number of hinges and also some kindling. A suitable coop for thee to 4 birds should cost you around ₤ 300 though this can rely on whether you elect for a cost-free standing house or one with a run affixed. Assuming you are varying your birds in a large room as well as the pop hole doorway is big enough for the type you maintain, after that the main demands of real estate come down to 3 points which will certainly define the number of birds your house will certainly hold; perches, nest boxes and also ventilation. Most breeds of chicken will certainly perch when they go to roost during the night, this perch must preferably be 5-8cm broad 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 certainly also normally search 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 generate the most poo) causing dirtied eggs the following day. They shouldn't nevertheless be so high off the floor of the house that leg injuries could possibly happen when the bird gets down in the early morning. Chickens need about 20cm of perch each (in small breeds this is certainly less), plus if more than one perch is set up in the house they must be greater than 30cm apart. They will hunker up with their next-door neighbors however are not that crazy about roosting with a beak in the bloomers of the bird ahead. Preferably the house ought to have a least one nest box for every three birds and also these ought to be off the ground and in the darkest area of your home. The house needs to have sufficient ventilation: without it after that condensation will develop every night, also in the coldest of weather. Be aware, air flow works on the concept of warm air leaving via a high gap drawing cooler air in from a lower gap - it's not a set of holes on opposite walls of the house as well as at the exact same level, this is what's called a draft. If you have a house with a run connected after that the points above are still true, however you should also consider the run size. The EU maximum legal stocking thickness for a free variety bird is (and also allow's encounter it, among the inspirations for maintaining some hens at home is potentially improved or better well-being) 2,500 birds each hectare, that's maximum one bird each 4m squared. Take a close take a look at a few of the bargain houses - it could well be your house has the appropriate perches, appropriate ventilation and also adequate nest boxes for an affordable variety of birds, however will each of the chickens have anything more than an A4 sized piece of ground to spend the day on? And so as the stating goes, "you get what you pay for". You might assume you've got a deal, but you and your group could rue the day you did. Purchase the appropriate house and it will last for a couple of years, otherwise longer offered the right therapy. Ultimately your poultry and also your poultry maintaining encounter will certainly be much the far better for it.plan for sale
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