Chicken Coops for Sale in Augusta, Maine
Chicken Coops for Sale in Augusta, Maine
Build Your Own Chicken Coop – A story of chickens
So WAY back in March…Josh and I had a talk with the boys and we decided as a family that we would get some chickens. We were all pretty excited about this new adventure and couldn’t wait to get started! At the beginning of April we headed over to to figure out what we would need and how many chickens we wanted. They had a very helpful employee who told us everything we would need to know about taking care of our chickens. Also, lucky for us we had Housewife Gena available to answer any questions we might have!
The boys were excited to help pick out the chickens and were even more excited when the IFA staff told us the chicks needed to be held lots and lots so they would be used to the kids. 🙂� After about an hour there we came home with…
Six adorable chicks! Because we are a family of five we decided to get two chickens that are said to lay daily and four chickens that lay 3-4 times a week. We figured that would be plenty of eggs for us!
A couple weeks later, IFA did an Easter Egg Hunt. Now being a farm supply store, they don’t give away just candy in their eggs, they also give away…you guessed it CHICKENS! (And bunnies and ducks and turkeys) Housewife Jenn’s kids ended up with four leghorn chicks! Another family in our ward decided they didn’t need any extra chickens and gave Jenn’s family another two chicks! Since we were already building a coop for our chicks, we offered to let Jenn’s family’s chicks live with ours.
So here are the little chicks! Happy under their heat lamp and eating away! 🙂�
While our chicks were perfectly happy in the garage, in their tote…it quickly got too small for 12 chicks. As soon as they were ready, we transferred them to the backyard to a makeshift coop. I did not take a picture of the makeshift coop because…well it was pretty sad. It served it’s purpose and the chickens loved it but it was not anything you’d want to show off! With that in mind, Josh began the process of building a coop for our chickens. We saw a coop at IFA that we thought looked great! However, it was $600.00. As much as we liked our chickens…we didn’t $600.00 like them!
So Josh took a few measurements and we sketched out what we wanted for our chickens, using the IFA coop as inspiration. We took a trip to Lowe’s to price out our materials. We were lucky enough that we had left over wood, Jenn’s family had left over wood and a family a few houses down from us reroofed their house and donated their left over roofing supplies to us! It was our goal to use as many materials as we already had and keep the cost as low as possible!
Let me say now…Josh and I have never “built” anything. Really. This was quite an adventure for us (mostly Josh since he did almost all of the work) and I’m so happy with how it all turned out!
He started with the base for the coop itself. We wanted to make sure that there was enough clearance for the chickens to use under the coop as part of the chicken run.
He used four 3″ screws in each post to make sure it was nice and sturdy.
Wall framing almost done!
Look what happens when you start building a coop…your chickens start laying eggs! 🙂� (So far Jenn’s chickens are the only ones laying. Lucky for us, our chickens are DUAL chickens so if they don’t get to laying…they going to get to frying!)
The framing completed from two angles.
Up go the walls!
Putting in the hinged door for collecting eggs.
Getting the eggs out will be a breeze! 🙂�
A few angles of the walls all up and the plywood for the roof up. As you can see, our coop has skylights…that’s how we roll.
First coat of paint and the tar paper on the roof. You may wonder why we chose this color for the coop. Well to be completely honest, we picked colors we wanted to paint our house and figured the coop would be the perfect guinea pig to see if we like the colors! 🙂� The coop is Valspar’s Royal Gray. (I know, it looks blue to me too!)
For the door we chose Valspar’s Kettle Black. It has blue undertones so it goes really well with the Royal Gray.
The roof complete with the windows in. I’ve seen lots of super cute coops with real glass windows. It was less expensive ($1.29 a pane) to just use plexiglass. And it worked perfectly!
The coop with the final coat of paint, windows/hardware on and trim put up.
The door on the coop. We chose to put a large door on the side to make it easier to clean out for us. And I have to say that it makes it look way cuter! 🙂�
The Roosting bar inside the coop.
Trim all painted and mesh put around the bottom of the coop.
The nesting boxes. The only thing I didn’t get a picture of was the peel and stick tiles that we put on the bottom of the coop. They were only $0.02 a tile! I think we ended up using about 14 tiles.
The finished product with the happy chickens inside!
Another angle. After the coop itself was completed. Josh used 2 x 2’s and 2 x 3’s to build the frame for the yard and another, outdoor roosting bar. We also added in the ramp for the chickens to get into the coop. I’m super proud of Josh for all of his hard work and I’m really excited for how amazing it turned out!! Our total cost for the entire coop…every last nail, hinge, can of paint, everything was about $290.00. And the best part is the chicken coop and run are significantly bigger than the one at IFA. 🙂� So HUGE round of applause for Josh and the coop!
UPDATE: Hello dear readers!!! This has been a long time coming, but this post is going to get a HUGE revamp! With having babies and life getting in the way, I’ve neglected this post and getting out the information that I should. I am going to be working on updating this post with as much information on the building and materials as I can. We didn’t keep super great track of all the materials we used, but I will do the best I can to give you as much info as possible! Thank you all again for loving this project!
© The REAL Housewives of Riverton, 2011-2016. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s authors and/or owners is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to The REAL Housewives of Riverton with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Chicken Coop Plans Free in Augusta, Maine
A good place to start any search is the internet. Simply plugging in the phrase "chicken coops for sale in Augusta Maine" 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 Augusta Maine chicken coops. What to look for when buying a chicken coop in Augusta, Maine With the big rise in poultry maintaining there has actually been a just as large rise in the array of chicken paraphernalia for sale. Chicken housing is a case in point. It's also a traditional instance of the great old bandwagon being got on as different would-be fowl real estate professionals peddle a selection of cottage claiming to be the optimal option to your chicken housing requirements. Commonly the price looks eye-catching, the house looks appealing, hell also the clean-cut family standing there feeding the chickens look eye-catching. Surely they recognize a high quality chicken house when they see one? There are several economical as well as unpleasant cages swamping the marketplace. I understand this as I've tested a variety of them in the area, and seen a ewe run directly with one when the feed pail appeared. The result was only a costly heap of fire wood and a small group of bemused as well as now homeless bantams.
Chicken Coop in Augusta, Maine
Typically these standardized versions are built of quick grown lumber - come the first decline of rain they swell, leaving you either fortifying a doorway that will not shut, or tearing the door furnishings off in a vain effort to launch the squawking inhabitants. The first cozy day implies the timber dries as well as cracks, the felt roofing bubbles as well as 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 eye-catching property yet since the hovel is currently a sanctuary for, as well as possibly abounding, the fowl caretaker's nemesis, red mite. Add on the fact that it claimed on the blurb that it would suit 4 large hens when that stocking thickness was based upon the Circle Line at 5pm on a Friday, and what are you left with? A few hinges and some kindling. A respectable coop for thee to four birds ought to cost you approximately ₤ 300 though this could depend on whether you elect for a complimentary standing house or one with a run affixed. Assuming you are ranging your birds in a big room as well as the pop hole doorway allows enough for the type you maintain, after that the primary needs of housing come down to 3 factors which will certainly define the variety of birds your home will hold; perches, nest boxes as well as air flow. A lot of breeds of chicken will perch when they visit roost in the evening, this perch should preferably be 5-8cm large with smoothed off sides so the foot rests conveniently on it. The perch needs to be above the nest box entrance as chickens will also naturally seek the acme 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) bring about dirtied eggs the list below day. They shouldn't however be so high off the flooring of your house that leg injuries can happen when the bird comes down in the morning. Chickens need concerning 20cm of perch each (in tiny types this is obviously much less), plus if greater than one perch is mounted in the house they ought to be more than 30cm apart. They will hunker up with their next-door neighbors yet are not that keen on roosting with a beak in the bloomers of the bird ahead. Preferably your home should have a the very least one nest box for every single 3 birds and also these need to be off the ground and in the darkest location of the house. Your house must have adequate ventilation: without it then condensation will accumulate every night, also in the chilliest of climate. Understand, ventilation works with the concept of cozy air leaving via a high void attracting cooler air in from a lower void - it's not a collection of openings on contrary wall surfaces of your home and also at the exact same degree, this is exactly what's known as a draught. If you have a house with a run attached after that the factors above are still true, yet you should also take into consideration the run dimension. The EU optimum legal stocking thickness for a complimentary range bird is (and also let's encounter it, among the inspirations for keeping some chickens in the house is potentially boosted or far better welfare) 2,500 birds per hectare, that's optimal one bird each 4m made even. Take a close consider a few of the bargain homes - it could well be your home has the ideal perches, proper ventilation as well as ample nest boxes for a reasonable variety of birds, yet will each of the chickens have anything greater than an A4 sized item of ground to invest the day on? And so as the claiming goes, "you obtain exactly what you pay for". You may believe you've got a deal, but you and your group could rue the day you did. Purchase the appropriate house and also it will last for a couple of decades, if not longer provided the correct treatment. Eventually your fowl and also your poultry keeping experience will be considerably the much better for it.plan chick
More Posts
Chicken Coops for Sale in Alna, Maine
Chicken Coops for Sale in Abbot, Maine
Chicken Coops for Sale in Addison, Maine
Chicken Coops for Sale in Andover, Maine
Chicken Coops for Sale in Athens, Maine