Chicken Coops for Sale in Methuen, Massachusetts
Chicken Coops for Sale in Methuen, Massachusetts
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!
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Baby Chick Enclosure in Methuen, Massachusetts
A good place to start any search is the internet. Simply plugging in the phrase "chicken coops for sale in Methuen Massachusetts" 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 Methuen Massachusetts chicken coops. What to look for when buying a chicken coop in Methuen, Massachusetts With the huge increase in poultry maintaining there has been an equally huge increase in the array of fowl paraphernalia for sale. Chicken housing is a situation in point. It's also a traditional example of the great old bandwagon being jumped on as various prospective poultry housing specialists pitch a selection of cottage asserting to be the suitable remedy to your chicken real estate needs. Usually the cost looks attractive, your diy-chicken-coop-planshome looks desirable, heck even the clean-cut family members standing there feeding the chickens look desirable. Certainly they know a quality chicken house when they see one? There are many affordable and also awful cages swamping the market. I know this as I've tested a number of them in the area, as well as seen a ewe run straight via one when the feed container showed up. The outcome was nothing but an expensive pile of firewood as well as a tiny flock of bemused and now homeless bantams.
Chicken Coop And Run in Methuen, Massachusetts
Usually these mass produced designs are built of fast grown lumber - come the very first decline of rain they swell, leaving you either defending a door that won't shut, or ripping the doorway furnishings off in a vain effort to launch the squawking citizens. The very first cozy day implies the lumber dries out and also splits, the really felt roofing system bubbles and also boils, as well as come nightfall the chickens choose not to go in. This is not because of their frustration at the decrease of their once attractive home yet since the hovel is now a sanctuary for, as well as possibly crawling with, the fowl keeper's bane, red mite. Add the fact that it claimed on the blurb that it would suit four large chickens when that stocking thickness was based on the Circle Line at 5pm on a Friday, and exactly what are you entrusted? A number of hinges and also some kindling. A good coop for thee to 4 birds must cost you approximately ₤ 300 though this could depend upon whether you choose for a free standing house or one with a run affixed. Presuming you are varying your birds in a big room as well as the pop opening doorway allows sufficient for the breed you keep, then the major requirements of real estate boil down to three points which will certainly specify the number of birds your house will hold; perches, nest boxes and air flow. Most breeds of chicken will certainly perch when they go to roost at night, this perch needs to ideally be 5-8cm vast with smoothed off edges so the foot rests pleasantly on it. The perch ought to be higher than the nest box access as chickens will also naturally search for the highest point to perch. A perch lower than that will have the birds roosting in the nest box overnight (which is by the way when they create one of the most poo) leading to soiled eggs the list below day. They should not nonetheless be so high off the floor of the house that leg injuries could take place when the bird gets down in the early morning. Chickens need concerning 20cm of perch each (in small types this is obviously much less), plus if greater than one perch is mounted in your home they should be more than 30cm apart. They will certainly hunker up with their next-door neighbors however are not that keen on roosting with a beak in the bloomers of the bird ahead. Preferably the house must have a the very least one nest box for every three birds as well as these must be off the ground as well as in the darkest area of your house. Your home should have appropriate air flow: without it then condensation will certainly build up every night, also in the coldest of weather condition. Realize, ventilation works on the principle of warm air leaving via a high gap attracting cooler air in from a lower gap - it's not a set of openings on opposite walls of the house and also at the exact same degree, this is what's called a draught. If you have a house with a run affixed after that the factors above are still true, but you need to also take into consideration the run size. The EU optimum legal stocking density for a complimentary variety bird is (and also allow's encounter it, among the motivations for keeping some chickens in your home is possibly enhanced or far better welfare) 2,500 birds each hectare, that's optimal one bird per 4m made even. Take a close take a look at several of the deal houses - it could well be the house has the appropriate perches, right ventilation and also adequate nest boxes for a reasonable variety of birds, but will each of the chickens have anything more than an A4 sized item of ground to spend the day on? And so as the saying goes, "you get exactly what you spend for". You could assume you've got hold of a bargain, however you and also your group could rue the day you did. Acquisition the ideal house as well as it will certainly last for a few decades, otherwise longer given the right treatment. Eventually your poultry and also your chicken keeping experience will be much the better for it.coop coop
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