Chicken Coops for Sale in Ellsworth, Michigan
Chicken Coops for Sale in Ellsworth, Michigan
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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Chicken Coop Free Plans in Ellsworth, Michigan
A good place to start any search is the internet. Simply plugging in the phrase "chicken coops for sale in Ellsworth Michigan" 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 Ellsworth Michigan chicken coops. What to look for when buying a chicken coop in Ellsworth, Michigan With the substantial boost in chicken keeping there has actually been a similarly big increase in the array of fowl stuff for sale. Chicken real estate is a proceedings in factor. It's likewise a traditional example of the excellent old bandwagon being got on as different would-be chicken real estate experts pitch a range of holiday accommodation claiming to be the optimal solution to your chicken housing demands. Frequently the rate looks eye-catching, your house looks attractive, hell even the clean-cut household standing there feeding the chickens look appealing. Certainly they know a high quality chicken house when they see one? There are several inexpensive and unpleasant cages swamping the market. I recognize this as I've checked a variety of them in the field, and also seen a ewe run straight via one when the feed bucket showed up. The result was only a pricey pile of fire wood and also a small group of bemused as well as now homeless bantams.
Chicken Coop Necessities in Ellsworth, Michigan
Typically these mass produced designs are created of quick grown up hardwood - come the very first drop of rainfall they swell, leaving you either blockading a doorway that will not close, or tearing the doorway furnishings off in a vain effort to launch the squawking inhabitants. The initial cozy day indicates the hardwood dries out and cracks, the felt roofing bubbles and also boils, and come nightfall the chickens refuse to go in. This is not due to their dissatisfaction at the decline of their as soon as attractive apartment yet considering that the hovel is currently a place for, and possibly abounding, the fowl keeper's bane, red mite. Add on the fact that it said on the blurb that it would fit 4 large chickens when that stocking density was based on the Circle Line at 5pm on a Friday, as well as what are you left with? A couple of joints as well as some kindling. A respectable coop for thee to four birds should cost you in the region of ₤ 300 though this can depend on whether you choose for a free standing house or one with a run attached. Thinking 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 main needs of housing boil down to three points which will certainly define the number of birds your home will hold; perches, nest boxes and air flow. A lot of types of chicken will perch when they go to roost in the evening, this perch ought to ideally be 5-8cm broad with smoothed off edges so the foot rests pleasantly on it. The perch must be higher than the nest box access as chickens will additionally naturally search for the highest point to perch. A perch lower than that will certainly have the birds roosting in the nest box overnight (which is incidentally when they produce the most poo) causing dirtied eggs the following day. They should not nonetheless be so high off the floor of your home that leg injuries could possibly occur when the bird comes down in the morning. Chickens need regarding 20cm of perch each (in small types this is certainly much less), plus if greater than one perch is mounted in the house they need to be greater than 30cm apart. They will certainly hunker up with their next-door neighbors however are not that crazy about roosting with a beak in the bloomers of the bird ahead. Ideally the house ought to have a least one nest box for every 3 birds as well as these must be off the ground and also in the darkest area of your home. Your house must have ample air flow: without it after that condensation will certainly accumulate every night, even in the coldest of weather condition. Know, air flow works on the concept of warm air leaving through a high void attracting cooler air in from a reduced void - it's not a collection of holes on contrary walls of your house and at the exact same level, this is what's called a draft. If you have a house with a run affixed then the points above are still true, yet you ought to additionally think about the run size. The EU maximum legal stocking thickness for a free array bird is (as well as allow's face it, among the inspirations for maintaining some hens in your home is possibly boosted or much better welfare) 2,500 birds each hectare, that's maximum one bird per 4m settled. Take a close check out a few of the bargain homes - it could well be the house has the ideal perches, correct air flow and also ample nest boxes for a practical number of birds, however will each of the chickens have anything greater than an A4 sized item of ground to invest the day on? Therefore as the claiming goes, "you get just what you spend for". You might assume you've grabbed a deal, but you as well as your flock might rue the day you did. Purchase the appropriate house as well as it will certainly last for a couple of years, otherwise longer offered the proper therapy. Ultimately your chicken and your chicken maintaining experience will certainly be a lot the far better for it.coop chick
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