Chicken Coops for Sale in Wheaton, Minnesota
Chicken Coops for Sale in Wheaton, Minnesota
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 Sale in Wheaton, Minnesota
A good place to start any search is the internet. Simply plugging in the phrase "chicken coops for sale in Wheaton Minnesota" 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 Wheaton Minnesota chicken coops. What to look for when buying a chicken coop in Wheaton, Minnesota With the significant increase in poultry keeping there has actually been a similarly huge increase in the array of fowl stuff for sale. Poultry real estate is an instance in point. It's additionally a traditional instance of the good old bandwagon being got on as various prospective fowl real estate specialists peddle a variety of accommodation claiming to be the excellent option to your chicken real estate requirements. Frequently the rate looks attractive, the house looks appealing, heck even the clean-cut family standing there feeding the chickens look attractive. Definitely they recognize a top quality chicken house when they see one? There are numerous affordable and horrible coops swamping the marketplace. I understand this as I've tested a number of them in the field, and seen a ewe run directly via one when the feed bucket showed up. The outcome was just a costly pile of fire wood and also a tiny group of bemused and also currently homeless bantams.
Chicken Coop Boxes in Wheaton, Minnesota
Most of the time these mass produced versions are created of quick grown wood - come the initial decrease of rain they swell, leaving you either defending a door that won't close, or ripping the doorway furnishings off in a vain effort to launch the squawking citizens. The very first cozy day suggests the wood dries as well as splits, the felt roof covering bubbles and also boils, as well as come nightfall the hens choose not to enter. This is not as a result of their frustration at the decrease of their when desirable property but since the hovel is currently a haven for, and most likely crawling with, the fowl keeper's bane, red mite. Add the fact that it claimed on the blurb that it would match 4 big chickens when that stocking thickness was based on the Circle Line at 5pm on a Friday, and also just what are you left with? A few joints as well as some kindling. A decent coop for thee to 4 birds should cost you approximately ₤ 300 though this could depend upon whether you elect for a free standing house or one with a run connected. Thinking you are varying your birds in a huge room as well as the pop hole door allows sufficient for the type you keep, after that the main requirements of housing come down to three points which will certainly define the number of birds your house will certainly hold; perches, nest boxes as well as ventilation. The majority of types of chicken will perch when they go to roost during the night, this perch should preferably be 5-8cm vast with smoothed off edges so the foot rests conveniently on it. The perch needs to be more than the nest box access as chickens will likewise normally try to find the highest point to perch. A perch below that will have the birds roosting in the nest box over night (which is by the way when they create one of the most poo) resulting in dirtied eggs the list below day. They shouldn't nonetheless be so high off the flooring of the house that leg injuries could possibly happen when the bird gets down in the early morning. Chickens require about 20cm of perch each (in small breeds this is obviously much less), plus if more 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 but are not that keen on roosting with a beak in the bloomers of the bird in front. Ideally your home must have a least one nest box for every three birds and these ought to be off the ground and in the darkest area of your home. Your house ought to have sufficient ventilation: without it then condensation will certainly develop every evening, even in the coldest of climate. Know, ventilation works on the principle of warm and comfortable air leaving through a high gap drawing cooler air in from a reduced void - it's not a set of holes on opposite walls of the house and at the very same level, this is just what's referred to as a draught. If you have a house with a run affixed then the points above are still true, however you ought to likewise think about the run size. The EU optimum legal equipping density for a totally free array bird is (and allow's face it, among the inspirations for maintaining some hens at home is possibly boosted or far better well-being) 2,500 birds each hectare, that's optimal one bird each 4m made even. Take a close look at some of the deal homes - it could well be the house has the best perches, correct ventilation as well as 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 invest the day on? And so as the claiming goes, "you get what you pay for". You could believe you've grabbed a bargain, yet you and also your flock can rue the day you did. Acquisition the right house as well as it will last for a few years, otherwise longer given the right treatment. In the end your poultry and also your chicken keeping encounter will be considerably the much better for it.build plan
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