Chicken Coops for Sale in Sound Beach, New York
Chicken Coops for Sale in Sound Beach, New York
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.
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Chicken Coop Boxes in Sound Beach, New York
A good place to start any search is the internet. Simply plugging in the phrase "chicken coops for sale in Sound Beach New York" 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 Sound Beach New York chicken coops. What to look for when buying a chicken coop in Sound Beach, New York With the big increase in chicken keeping there has actually been an equally large surge in the variety of poultry paraphernalia for sale. Fowl real estate is a situation in factor. It's also a timeless example of the great old bandwagon being jumped on as different would-be chicken housing professionals pitch a range of lodging declaring to be the ideal option to your chicken real estate requirements. Frequently the rate looks eye-catching, your house looks desirable, hell even the clean-cut family standing there feeding the chickens look attractive. Certainly they know a high quality chicken house when they see one? There are many inexpensive and also unpleasant coops swamping the market. I know this as I've examined a number of them in the area, and seen a ewe run straight through one when the feed bucket appeared. The outcome was just a pricey stack of fire wood as well as a small flock of bemused and now homeless bantams.
Chicken Coop Blueprints in Sound Beach, New York
More often than not these standardized versions are built of fast grown up timber - come the initial decline of rainfall they swell, leaving you either defending a door that will not close, or ripping the doorway furniture off in a vain effort to release the squawking residents. The first warm day indicates the lumber dries and also cracks, the felt roof covering bubbles and boils, as well as come nightfall the chickens choose not to enter. This is not as a result of their disappointment at the decline of their as soon as eye-catching residential property however due to the fact that the hovel is now a place for, and probably crawling with, the poultry caretaker's bane, red mite. Add the fact that it claimed on the blurb that it would match 4 large hens when that stocking density was based on the Circle Line at 5pm on a Friday, and exactly what are you entrusted? A number of hinges as well as some kindling. A respectable coop for thee to 4 birds ought to cost you in the region of ₤ 300 though this could depend on whether you elect for a free standing house or one with a run affixed. Thinking you are ranging your birds in a large space and also the pop hole doorway allows sufficient for the breed you keep, after that the primary needs of real estate boil down to 3 factors which will specify the number of birds your house will certainly hold; perches, nest boxes as well as air flow. A lot of types of chicken will perch when they go to roost in the evening, this perch needs to ideally be 5-8cm broad with smoothed off edges so the foot rests pleasantly on it. The perch needs to be above the nest box access as chickens will certainly additionally naturally search for the acme to perch. A perch lower than that will certainly have the birds roosting in the nest box overnight (which is incidentally when they generate the most poo) resulting in stained eggs the following day. They should not nevertheless be so high off the floor of your home that leg injuries might occur when the bird comes down in the morning. Chickens require concerning 20cm of perch each (in little breeds this is obviously much less), plus if more than one perch is mounted in the house they must be greater than 30cm apart. They will certainly hunker up with their neighbors however are not that keen on roosting with a beak in the bloomers of the bird ahead. Ideally your house ought to have a least one nest box for every three birds and these must be off the ground as well as in the darkest location of your house. Your home needs to have appropriate air flow: without it then condensation will certainly accumulate every evening, also in the coldest of weather condition. Know, air flow works with the concept of cozy air leaving through a high void drawing cooler air in from a lower gap - it's not a collection of holes on other walls of the house as well as at the exact same degree, this is what's called a draft. If you have a house with a run affixed after that the factors above are still real, but you must likewise take into consideration the run dimension. The EU maximum lawful equipping thickness for a cost-free range bird is (as well as allow's encounter it, among the motivations for maintaining some chickens at home is perhaps boosted or much better well-being) 2,500 birds per hectare, that's optimal one bird per 4m settled. Take a close check out several of the bargain homes - it could well be your house has the appropriate perches, right air flow 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? Therefore as the claiming goes, "you get what you spend for". You could think you've grabbed a deal, yet you and also your flock could possibly rue the day you did. Acquisition the appropriate house as well as it will certainly last for a couple of years, otherwise longer provided the right treatment. In the long run your fowl and your chicken maintaining encounter will be much the better for it.plan chicken
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