Chicken Coops for Sale in Grosse Pointe, Michigan
Chicken Coops for Sale in Grosse Pointe, Michigan
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.
Read more on urban farming:
Share this:
Baby Chick Care in Grosse Pointe, Michigan
A good place to start any search is the internet. Simply plugging in the phrase "chicken coops for sale in Grosse Pointe 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 Grosse Pointe Michigan chicken coops. What to look for when buying a chicken coop in Grosse Pointe, Michigan With the huge increase in chicken keeping there has been a similarly huge surge in the variety of poultry stuff for sale. Poultry housing is an instance in factor. It's additionally a classic example of the great old bandwagon being jumped on as numerous potential fowl housing experts peddle a variety of lodging asserting to be the optimal remedy to your chicken housing requirements. Often the rate looks desirable, the house looks desirable, hell also the clean-cut family members standing there feeding the chickens look eye-catching. Undoubtedly they understand a top quality chicken house when they see one? There are several cheap and awful coops flooding the marketplace. I understand this as I've examined a number of them in the field, as well as seen a ewe run directly via one when the feed bucket appeared. The outcome was nothing but an expensive stack of firewood and also a small flock of bemused and now homeless bantams.
Chicken Coop Cheap in Grosse Pointe, Michigan
Usually these standardized designs are built of fast grown lumber - come the initial drop of rain they swell, leaving you either fortifying a doorway that will not shut, or ripping the doorway furniture off in a vain attempt to launch the squawking citizens. The initial warm and comfortable day indicates the timber dries as well as fractures, the really felt roofing system bubbles and also boils, as well as come nightfall the hens choose not to enter. This is not because of their frustration at the decrease of their once desirable apartment however considering that the hovel is currently a place for, and also probably crawling with, the chicken caretaker's bane, red mite. Add the fact that it claimed on the blurb that it would match 4 large chickens when that stocking thickness was based on the Circle Line at 5pm on a Friday, and also what are you entrusted? A few joints as well as some kindling. A suitable coop for thee to four birds must cost you around ₤ 300 though this can depend upon whether you choose for a complimentary standing house or one with a run attached. Presuming you are varying your birds in a huge room as well as the pop opening doorway allows sufficient for the type you keep, then the main needs of real estate come down to 3 factors which will certainly define the variety of birds your home will hold; perches, nest boxes and air flow. Many breeds of chicken will perch when they go to roost at night, this perch ought to preferably be 5-8cm large with smoothed off sides so the foot rests pleasantly on it. The perch ought to be higher than the nest box entry as chickens will certainly additionally normally look for the acme to perch. A perch lower than that will have the birds roosting in the nest box overnight (which is by the way when they produce the most poo) causing soiled eggs the list below day. They should not nevertheless be so high off the flooring of the house that leg injuries might happen when the bird comes down in the early morning. Chickens require concerning 20cm of perch each (in little breeds this is undoubtedly much less), plus if greater than one perch is installed in the house they should be more than 30cm apart. They will hunker up with their neighbors however are not that crazy about roosting with a beak in the bloomers of the bird ahead. Ideally your home should have a the very least one nest box for each 3 birds as well as these must be off the ground and in the darkest location of your home. The house ought to have ample ventilation: without it after that condensation will certainly develop every night, even in the coldest of climate. Know, air flow works on the principle of warm air leaving via a high gap drawing cooler air in from a reduced gap - it's not a set of holes on other wall surfaces of your home and also at the same degree, this is exactly what's known as a draught. If you have a house with a run connected after that the factors above are still true, however you should also think about the run size. The EU optimum lawful stocking thickness for a free range bird is (and allow's face it, among the inspirations for keeping some chickens in the house is perhaps improved or much better well-being) 2,500 birds each hectare, that's maximum one bird per 4m made even. Take a close look at several of the bargain homes - it could well be your house has the appropriate perches, appropriate ventilation and also adequate nest boxes for a practical number of birds, yet will each of the chickens have anything more than an A4 sized piece of ground to spend the day on? And so as the claiming goes, "you obtain exactly what you spend for". You may believe you've got a deal, however you and also your flock could rue the day you did. Purchase the ideal house and it will certainly last for a couple of decades, if not longer provided the proper therapy. Ultimately your chicken and also your chicken maintaining experience will certainly be considerably the far better for it.chickens coops
More Posts
Chicken Coops for Sale in Charlevoix, Michigan
Chicken Coops for Sale in Carson City, Michigan
Chicken Coops for Sale in Berrien Center, Michigan
Chicken Coops for Sale in Clarkston, Michigan
Chicken Coops for Sale in Genesee, Michigan