Chicken Coops for Sale in Valliant, Oklahoma
Chicken Coops for Sale in Valliant, Oklahoma
Our Chicken Coop Design – Front Elevation (Part 2 of 3)
Okay, I lied. I had hoped to finish up writing on our chicken coop design with this post, but I ran out of time and markers…seriously – my gray marker ran out. So today I’m going to focus on the front elevation and next week I’ll wrap it up with the other 3 elevations.
Front Elevation of the Coop
When designing your coop you really need to think through ventilation for a number of reasons: respiratory health of the chickens; drying out the moisture and their manure keeps down the smells and the potential of the hens getting sick. I made ours super-ventilated by covering the entire front of our coop with hardware cloth. We may have gone overboard, but it’s better to err on the side of too much ventilation in a coop than too little…and because Atlanta has a fairly temperate climate, I think we’re good. That said, you do have to consider strong winds – particularly in the colder months. That’s why Britt and I crafted Roman shade-like curtains out of painter’s drop cloths for the front and the windows on the other 3 sides of the coop. It was quite inexpensive and fairly easy to do…particularly if you strategically use the hems already sewn in. These curtains will give our ladies a refuge from the cold winds – protecting the exposed areas of their bodies (combs, wattles, and feet).
Here are a few other things to note about the front elevation of our coop:
- Again, entire area is covered in hardware cloth. I could have used chicken wire on the top (bottom needs hardware cloth to keep out critters), but I had enough hardware cloth and I thought it looked better for the entire area to be consistent.
- The height of the walls are 6.5’…which is plenty high (for me at least) to be able to walk through the door…and there is plenty of height inside, since there is no ceiling (just the rafters and tin roof above).
- 24″ doors were constructed out of pressure-treated wood and painted the same color as the doors of our home.
- To clean things up a bit and to cover up where the pieces of hardware cloth met, I added 1″ trim on the outside of each 2×4 and painted it and the siding of the rest of the coop the same color gray as our house.
- We used gate latches as handles. If you do as well, make sure you make it so that you won’t get locked in when the doors close. To do that, I simply drilled a hole just above the latch and attached a long, thin chain that I threaded through the hole…allowing me to open the latch from inside. Don’t use string or twine…I found that out the hard way. String will wear out and break – leaving you stranded inside. Fortunately when it happened to me, one of my girls was within shouting distance.
- We were running out of hardware cloth when we were finishing the gable, so we simply filled in the middle space with a board and painted it gray. To make sense of this oddly proportioned space and to bring a little bit of character to the coop, I hung a set of antlers from a Mule Deer I shot several years ago with my dad in Wyoming.
So there’s the front elevation. We are really pleased with it…it’s done what we set out to do – make a more than livable space for our chickens (and bunny), while still being attractive. Now we may be a bit too particular, but I really think having an attractive coop in a nice setting has made raising chickens not only sustainable, but more enjoyable. So sure, you could build a coop that is purely functional, but if it looks like a hunk of junk, is that really something you want to see every day…sometimes several times? We thought not.
Next week I’ll wrap things up on our chicken coop design…but until then, please let me know if you have any other questions about our coop or raising chickens. I could perhaps work my answers into the next post.
Take care,
PS: Here are the links to and of Our Chicken Coop Design…and the link to .
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Chicken Coop Door in Valliant, Oklahoma
A good place to start any search is the internet. Simply plugging in the phrase "chicken coops for sale in Valliant 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 Valliant Oklahoma chicken coops. What to look for when buying a chicken coop in Valliant, Oklahoma With the huge rise in chicken maintaining there has actually been an equally huge surge in the array of poultry paraphernalia on sale. Chicken real estate is a case in point. It's additionally a traditional example of the excellent old bandwagon being jumped on as various prospective chicken real estate specialists market an array of lodging declaring to be the perfect remedy to your chicken housing demands. Typically the cost looks desirable, your house looks desirable, hell even the clean-cut family standing there feeding the chickens look appealing. Definitely they recognize a professional chicken house when they see one? There are numerous cheap as well as nasty coops swamping the marketplace. I understand this as I've examined a variety of them in the area, and also seen a ewe run straight via one when the feed container showed up. The outcome was nothing but a costly pile of firewood and also a small group of bemused and now homeless bantams.
Baby Chick Feeder in Valliant, Oklahoma
More often than not these mass produced models are built of rapid grown lumber - come the very first drop of rainfall they swell, leaving you either defending a doorway that won't shut, or ripping the door furnishings off in a vain attempt to launch the squawking occupants. The initial warm and comfortable day means the timber dries out and cracks, the really felt roofing bubbles and also boils, and come nightfall the chickens refuse to go in. This is not because of their dissatisfaction at the decline of their once eye-catching property but since the hovel is currently a place for, and also possibly crawling with, the poultry caretaker's bane, red mite. Add that it stated on the blurb that it would match four large hens when that stocking thickness was based on the Circle Line at 5pm on a Friday, and just what are you left with? A couple of joints as well as some kindling. A respectable coop for thee to 4 birds need to cost you around ₤ 300 though this can rely on whether you choose for a cost-free standing house or one with a run connected. Assuming you are varying your birds in a big area and the pop opening door is big sufficient for the type you keep, after that the main demands of real estate come down to three factors which will define the variety of birds your house will certainly hold; perches, nest boxes and air flow. A lot of breeds of chicken will perch when they go to roost during the night, this perch must ideally be 5-8cm broad with smoothed off sides so the foot rests easily on it. The perch ought to be higher than the nest box access as chickens will likewise normally look for the acme to perch. A perch less than that will have the birds roosting in the nest box overnight (which is by the way when they create one of the most poo) causing dirtied eggs the following day. They shouldn't nevertheless be so high off the floor of the house that leg injuries could possibly occur when the bird gets down in the early morning. Chickens require regarding 20cm of perch each (in small types this is obviously much less), plus if greater than one perch is set up in your house they should be greater than 30cm apart. They will hunker up with their neighbors however are not that keen on roosting with a beak in the bloomers of the bird in front. Preferably your house needs to have a the very least one nest box for each 3 birds and also these need to be off the ground and also in the darkest location of your house. The house should have ample air flow: without it then condensation will build up every evening, even in the chilliest of weather condition. Realize, ventilation works with the concept of warm and comfortable air leaving with a high gap drawing cooler air in from a reduced void - it's not a collection of openings on opposite walls of the house and at the very same degree, this is exactly what's known as a draft. If you have a house with a run attached after that the points above are still true, yet you must additionally think about the run size. The EU maximum legal equipping thickness for a free array bird is (and also allow's encounter it, one of the motivations for keeping some chickens in the house is possibly improved or better welfare) 2,500 birds each hectare, that's maximum one bird each 4m made even. Take a close look at a few of the deal homes - it could well be your house has the right perches, right air flow and also ample nest boxes for an affordable variety of birds, yet will each of the chickens have anything greater than an A4 sized item of ground to invest the day on? Therefore as the stating goes, "you get just what you pay for". You might assume you've got hold of a bargain, but you and your group might rue the day you did. Purchase the appropriate house and also it will last for a couple of decades, otherwise longer offered the correct treatment. In the end your poultry and also your fowl keeping encounter will be considerably the much better for it.diy plan
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