Chicken Coops for Sale in Kenesaw, Nebraska
Chicken Coops for Sale in Kenesaw, Nebraska
Chicken Coops — The Top 5 Requirements
Chicken Coops – What You Need
Happy, healthy chickens need proper housing, but knowing what you need may seem daunting. Don’t let choosing the house for your chickens intimidate you. Meeting the needs of your flock, whether building your own chicken castle or buying ready-made, is easy and should provide for four basic needs.
- Protection from the elements
- Protection from predators
- Place for laying eggs
- A roost at night
The Components of a Chicken Coop
As I wrote in my , chickens have an innate homing instinct, keeping your flock close to home. Our feathered kids are such home bodies that even free ranging, every night before sundown all our chickens are perched in the coop. I always recommend a protected place for your flock to come home and roost for the night, even when free ranging.
You don’t need a poultry castle for your chickens to come home to. come in many shapes, sizes, and designs, from fancy to plain. Believe it or not, your chickens won’t care what the coop looks like as long as it provides the above four basic needs.
With that said, before deciding what type of coop you are going to buy or build, you must determine what coop features are needed that most closely conform to a chicken’s natural behavior. Hopefully I can help you understand what you need in the design of your chicken coop.
The Basics
Let’s start with the basics. All chicken coops need 3 things; a roof, 4 walls, and a doorway for entering and leaving. The design and the materials used for the chicken coop is up to you. As long as it is mostly draft free (you still need healthy ventilation), your choices are endless.
Your coop space is based on the number of chickens you plan to house. A good rule of thumb is 4 square feet of floor space per large chicken and 3 square feet for the smaller bantam breeds. Also consider the ease of cleaning when choosing your coop design; you’ll be glad you did.
Security
Making a chicken coop predator free is the most important part of building a home for your flock. Your coop must be secure from the top, bottom, and all sides. When looking at any pre-made coop or chicken coop building plans, consider all angles for security. Not only should you consider the security of the coop itself, but the security of the yard and run as well.
When choosing the wire for your run and coop, we advise steering clear of standard chicken wire. While it works well for keeping your chickens contained it’s not entirely predator proof. Because the holes in standard chicken wire are large, coyotes, raccoons, and foxes can still reach through the mesh, causing harm to your chickens. Always use a small hole wire like hardware cloth with ½ inch openings.
Another consideration when building the chicken yard or run, is airborne predators like hawks. You must include covering the top of the run as well. Our chicken runs use the same size mesh fencing on the top as the sides.
Finally, there are predators from below, such as rats and mice. These critters are attracted to the feed and droppings and like to burrow under your coop. Protect your chickens by using a coop with a floor built into it or burying small mesh fencing below the coop and extending it about 12 inches out on all sides.
The Outside Run
All coops need a connecting chicken run or pen. Chickens need access to the outside to do all those “chicken things”, like dirt baths, catching bugs, scratching dirt, or just relaxing in the sunshine or shade.
Ideally, your chicken run should have 10 square feet of ground space per full size chicken. The smaller bantam breeds require less, about 7 square feet per chicken. If your chickens free range the majority of the day, you can get by with less space.
Laying Boxes
If you want eggs, you need laying boxes. These can be as fancy or as plain as you like, just as long as they are about 12” x 12” and raised off the ground a few inches. You need one box for every 4 laying hens. Boxes should comfortably fit the chicken and have low enough sides for the hens to step over. Be sure to keep your boxes lined with clean straw or other bedding.
Roosting Perches
All birds roost, including chickens. Your coop needs a roosting bar or something off the ground on which your chickens can perch. We strongly suggest having perches both inside the coop and outside in the run area.
When figuring roosting pole size, provide 5-10” of space per chicken and 10” of space between each pole if you are using more than one. Multiple poles also need grading like ladders so the farthest pole is several inches higher than the next.
There are many shapes, sizes, and styles of chicken coops to choose from. Making the right choice for your needs is important, and all coops need to contain all necessary elements.
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Baby Chicks in Kenesaw, Nebraska
A good place to start any search is the internet. Simply plugging in the phrase "chicken coops for sale in Kenesaw Nebraska" 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 Kenesaw Nebraska chicken coops. What to look for when buying a chicken coop in Kenesaw, Nebraska With the substantial rise in poultry maintaining there has actually been a similarly huge surge in the array of fowl stuff for sale. Chicken real estate is a situation in factor. It's likewise a classic instance of the good old bandwagon being jumped on as different prospective chicken real estate professionals peddle an array of lodging asserting to be the suitable solution to your chicken real estate needs. Typically the price looks eye-catching, the house looks eye-catching, hell even the clean-cut family members standing there feeding the chickens look appealing. Certainly they understand a top quality chicken house when they see one? There are numerous affordable and also awful cages flooding the market. I know this as I've tested a number of them in the area, and also seen a ewe run directly with one when the feed pail showed up. The outcome was only an expensive stack of fire wood and a little flock of bemused and now homeless bantams.
Chicken House in Kenesaw, Nebraska
Typically these standardized versions are created of quick grown up wood - come the initial decrease of rainfall they swell, leaving you either defending a door that will not shut, or ripping the doorway furniture off in a vain effort to release the squawking residents. The first warm and comfortable day indicates the lumber dries out and also fractures, the felt roof covering bubbles and boils, as well as come nightfall the chickens refuse to go in. This is not because of their dissatisfaction at the decrease of their as soon as appealing home but because the hovel is currently a sanctuary for, and also possibly abounding, the fowl keeper's bane, red mite. Add on that it said on the blurb that it would fit 4 huge chickens when that equipping density was based upon the Circle Line at 5pm on a Friday, as well as exactly what are you entrusted? A couple of joints and also some kindling. A respectable coop for thee to 4 birds must cost you around ₤ 300 though this could depend on whether you choose for a complimentary standing house or one with a run attached. Assuming you are ranging your birds in a huge room and also the pop hole door allows enough for the breed you keep, then the major requirements of real estate come down to 3 points which will certainly define the number of birds your house will hold; perches, nest boxes as well as ventilation. A lot of types of chicken will certainly perch when they visit roost at night, this perch ought to preferably be 5-8cm large with smoothed off sides so the foot rests comfortably on it. The perch needs to be more than the nest box entrance as chickens will certainly additionally normally look for the highest point to perch. A perch below that will certainly have the birds roosting in the nest box over night (which is by the way when they create the most poo) causing soiled eggs the following day. They should not nonetheless be so high off the flooring of your home that leg injuries can happen when the bird gets down in the early morning. Chickens require regarding 20cm of perch each (in small types this is certainly much less), plus if greater than one perch is mounted in your house they ought to be greater than 30cm apart. They will hunker up with their neighbors yet are not that keen on roosting with a beak in the bloomers of the bird in front. Preferably your home should have a least one nest box for every single 3 birds and these must be off the ground and in the darkest location of your house. Your home ought to have sufficient air flow: without it after that condensation will build up every evening, also in the coldest of weather condition. Be aware, air flow works with the principle of cozy air leaving with a high space attracting cooler air in from a reduced gap - it's not a set of holes on opposite 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 attached after that the points above are still true, but you must likewise take into consideration the run dimension. The EU maximum legal equipping thickness for a cost-free array bird is (and also let's encounter it, among the motivations for keeping some chickens at home is potentially improved or far better well-being) 2,500 birds per hectare, that's maximum one bird per 4m made even. Take a close take a look at some of the deal homes - it could well be your home has the appropriate perches, right ventilation and adequate nest boxes for an affordable number of birds, but will each of the chickens have anything greater than an A4 sized item of ground to invest the day on? And so as the saying goes, "you get exactly what you spend for". You may believe you've grabbed a bargain, but you and also your flock might rue the day you did. Acquisition the appropriate house as well as it will last for a couple of decades, if not longer provided the correct treatment. Ultimately your poultry and also your chicken maintaining encounter will be much the much better for it.plans for sale
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