Chicken Coops for Sale in Pocasset, Oklahoma
Chicken Coops for Sale in Pocasset, Oklahoma
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 Near Me in Pocasset, Oklahoma
A good place to start any search is the internet. Simply plugging in the phrase "chicken coops for sale in Pocasset Oklahoma" 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 Pocasset Oklahoma chicken coops. What to look for when buying a chicken coop in Pocasset, Oklahoma With the significant boost in poultry maintaining there has actually been a similarly large surge in the range of fowl paraphernalia for sale. Fowl housing is a situation in factor. It's also a traditional example of the excellent old bandwagon being got on as numerous potential chicken housing professionals pitch a variety of lodging claiming to be the perfect solution to your chicken housing demands. Usually the price looks attractive, your diy-chicken-coop-planshome looks appealing, heck even the clean-cut family standing there feeding the chickens look attractive. Certainly they understand a top quality chicken house when they see one? There are several cheap and also unpleasant cages flooding the market. I recognize this as I've tested a number of them in the field, and seen a ewe run straight via one when the feed pail appeared. The outcome was just a pricey stack of fire wood as well as a tiny flock of bemused and now homeless bantams.
Baby Chick Care in Pocasset, Oklahoma
Generally these mass produced models are built of quick grown up wood - come the first decline of rainfall they swell, leaving you either fortifying a doorway that won't close, or tearing the doorway furnishings off in a vain effort to launch the squawking occupants. The initial warm day means the timber dries out and also cracks, the felt roof bubbles and boils, and come nightfall the chickens refuse to go in. This is not due to their dissatisfaction at the decline of their once attractive apartment but since the hovel is currently a haven for, and also possibly abounding, the fowl keeper's nemesis, red mite. Add on the fact that it stated on the blurb that it would suit four large chickens when that equipping density was based upon the Circle Line at 5pm on a Friday, as well as exactly what are you left with? A couple of hinges and also some kindling. A good coop for thee to four birds need to cost you around ₤ 300 though this can depend on whether you choose for a complimentary standing house or one with a run connected. Assuming you are ranging your birds in a big area and the pop hole door allows enough for the breed you keep, after that the main demands of housing boil down to three factors which will define the number of birds your house will certainly hold; perches, nest boxes as well as air flow. The majority of breeds of chicken will perch when they go to roost in the evening, this perch should ideally be 5-8cm vast with smoothed off edges so the foot rests conveniently on it. The perch needs to be above the nest box entrance as chickens will certainly additionally naturally seek the acme to perch. A perch below that will have the birds roosting in the nest box over night (which is incidentally when they generate one of the most poo) resulting in soiled eggs the following day. They should not however be so high off the floor of the house that leg injuries could possibly occur when the bird gets down in the morning. Chickens need concerning 20cm of perch each (in small types this is clearly much less), plus if more than one perch is installed in your home they should be more 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 ahead. Ideally your house ought to have a the very least one nest box for every single three birds as well as these should be off the ground as well as in the darkest area of your home. The house should have ample ventilation: without it then condensation will certainly develop every evening, also in the chilliest of weather. Understand, air flow works with the principle of cozy air leaving with a high void attracting cooler air in from a lower space - it's not a collection of holes on opposite walls of the house and also at the very same degree, this is what's known as a draught. If you have a house with a run connected after that the factors above are still real, however you should additionally think about the run size. The EU maximum legal stocking thickness for a free variety bird is (and also allow's encounter it, one of the inspirations for keeping some chickens at home is potentially improved or much better well-being) 2,500 birds each hectare, that's maximum one bird per 4m settled. Take a close look at several of the deal residences - it could well be your house has the best perches, appropriate ventilation and also enough nest boxes for a practical number of birds, but will each of the chickens have anything greater than an A4 sized piece of ground to spend the day on? And so as the stating goes, "you get just what you spend for". You may assume you've got hold of a deal, however you and your flock can rue the day you did. Purchase the appropriate house and it will last for a few years, if not longer provided the right treatment. In the end your fowl as well as your fowl maintaining encounter will certainly be considerably the far better for it.chick coop
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