Chicken Coops for Sale in Winterport, Maine
Chicken Coops for Sale in Winterport, Maine
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 Kits Cheap in Winterport, Maine
A good place to start any search is the internet. Simply plugging in the phrase "chicken coops for sale in Winterport 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 Winterport Maine chicken coops. What to look for when buying a chicken coop in Winterport, Maine With the substantial boost in chicken keeping there has actually been a just as huge surge in the array of poultry paraphernalia on sale. Chicken housing is a proceedings in factor. It's likewise a timeless example of the excellent old bandwagon being got on as numerous prospective chicken housing specialists market an array of lodging claiming to be the optimal solution to your chicken real estate needs. Frequently the cost looks eye-catching, the house looks eye-catching, hell also the clean-cut family members standing there feeding the chickens look appealing. Surely they know a professional chicken house when they see one? There are several affordable and nasty coops swamping the market. I understand this as I've examined a variety of them in the field, and seen a ewe run directly through one when the feed bucket appeared. The outcome was nothing but a pricey pile of firewood as well as a small flock of bemused and currently homeless bantams.
Chicken Coop Cheap in Winterport, Maine
Generally these standardized versions are built of rapid grown hardwood - come the first drop of rain they swell, leaving you either barricading a door that won't shut, or tearing the door furniture off in a vain effort to release the squawking inhabitants. The first cozy day implies the timber dries and fractures, the really felt roofing bubbles as well as boils, as well as come nightfall the chickens refuse to enter. This is not because of their dissatisfaction at the decline of their when appealing commercial property but due to the fact that the hovel is currently a place for, as well as most likely abounding, the fowl caretaker's nemesis, red mite. Add on the fact that it claimed on the blurb that it would certainly match four big hens when that equipping density was based on the Circle Line at 5pm on a Friday, and also exactly what are you left with? A number of hinges and some kindling. A suitable coop for thee to 4 birds must cost you around ₤ 300 though this can depend on whether you elect for a complimentary standing house or one with a run attached. Assuming you are ranging your birds in a large area and also the pop hole doorway is big enough for the type you maintain, then the major demands of real estate come down to three factors which will specify the variety of birds the house will certainly hold; perches, nest boxes and ventilation. A lot of types of chicken will certainly perch when they go to roost during the night, this perch ought to ideally be 5-8cm vast with smoothed off edges so the foot rests conveniently on it. The perch needs to be above the nest box entry as chickens will certainly likewise naturally look for the acme to perch. A perch below that will certainly have the birds roosting in the nest box overnight (which is incidentally when they generate the most poo) leading to stained eggs the following day. They shouldn't nonetheless be so high off the flooring of the house that leg injuries can occur when the bird comes down in the morning. Chickens need concerning 20cm of perch each (in tiny breeds this is clearly much less), plus if greater than one perch is mounted in your 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. Ideally your house needs to have a least one nest box for every 3 birds as well as these must be off the ground and in the darkest area of your home. The house should have ample ventilation: without it after that condensation will certainly build up every evening, even in the chilliest of weather condition. Be aware, air flow works on the concept of cozy air leaving with a high gap attracting cooler air in from a lower gap - it's not a set of openings on other wall surfaces of your home and at the same degree, this is what's referred to as a draught. If you have a house with a run connected then the points above are still true, but you ought to also consider the run dimension. The EU maximum legal equipping thickness for a cost-free array bird is (and also allow's face it, among the motivations for maintaining some chickens at home is perhaps boosted or far better welfare) 2,500 birds per hectare, that's optimal one bird each 4m settled. Take a close consider several of the bargain houses - it could well be your house has the ideal perches, appropriate air flow and enough nest boxes for a practical number of birds, yet will each of the chickens have anything greater than an A4 sized piece of ground to spend the day on? Therefore as the stating goes, "you get what you pay for". You could assume you've got hold of a deal, however you and your group might rue the day you did. Acquisition the appropriate house and also it will certainly last for a couple of years, if not longer offered the right therapy. In the end your fowl as well as your poultry keeping experience will certainly be considerably the much better for it.chick diy
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