Chicken Coops for Sale in East Berlin, Pennsylvania
Chicken Coops for Sale in East Berlin, Pennsylvania
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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Baby Chicks in East Berlin, Pennsylvania
A good place to start any search is the internet. Simply plugging in the phrase "chicken coops for sale in East Berlin Pennsylvania" 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 East Berlin Pennsylvania chicken coops. What to look for when buying a chicken coop in East Berlin, Pennsylvania With the significant boost in chicken maintaining there has been an equally large surge in the variety of poultry stuff on sale. Poultry housing is a case in factor. It's also a traditional instance of the good old bandwagon being jumped on as numerous would-be fowl housing specialists market a variety of accommodation declaring to be the optimal remedy to your chicken real estate requirements. Typically the cost looks appealing, your diy-chicken-coop-planshome looks appealing, hell also the clean-cut family members standing there feeding the chickens look eye-catching. Certainly they know a quality chicken house when they see one? There are lots of cheap and horrible cages flooding the marketplace. I understand this as I've tested a number of them in the area, and seen a ewe run straight via one when the feed bucket showed up. The result was just a pricey pile of firewood and also a little flock of bemused as well as now homeless bantams.
Chicken Coop in East Berlin, Pennsylvania
Usually these standardized versions are constructed of rapid grown timber - come the very first decrease of rainfall they swell, leaving you either fortifying a door that won't close, or ripping the doorway furnishings off in a vain effort to release the squawking citizens. The initial warm day implies the lumber dries out and splits, the felt roof covering bubbles and boils, and come nightfall the chickens refuse to go in. This is not as a result of their dissatisfaction at the decline of their as soon as desirable property yet because the hovel is now a place for, and also possibly crawling with, the fowl keeper's bane, red mite. Add the fact that it stated on the blurb that it would certainly suit four large chickens when that equipping thickness was based upon the Circle Line at 5pm on a Friday, and exactly what are you left with? A few joints and also some kindling. A good coop for thee to 4 birds must cost you in the region of ₤ 300 though this can depend upon whether you choose for a complimentary standing house or one with a run connected. Thinking you are varying your birds in a huge space and also the pop opening door allows sufficient for the type you maintain, then the main demands of real estate come down to 3 factors which will certainly define the number of birds your home will hold; perches, nest boxes and air flow. A lot of breeds of chicken will perch when they go to roost in the evening, this perch needs to preferably be 5-8cm wide with smoothed off edges so the foot rests easily on it. The perch must be above the nest box access as chickens will additionally 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 incidentally when they create one of the most poo) bring about soiled eggs the list below day. They shouldn't nonetheless be so high off the floor of your home that leg injuries can happen when the bird comes down in the early morning. Chickens need regarding 20cm of perch each (in tiny types this is obviously less), plus if greater than one perch is mounted in your home they should be greater than 30cm apart. They will certainly hunker up with their next-door neighbors but are not that crazy about roosting with a beak in the bloomers of the bird in front. Ideally the house should have a least one nest box for every three birds and these ought to be off the ground and also in the darkest location of your home. Your home needs to have sufficient air flow: without it after that condensation will certainly develop every evening, also in the coldest of weather. Be aware, air flow works on the principle of warm and comfortable air leaving through a high gap attracting cooler air in from a lower void - it's not a collection of holes on contrary walls of the house as well as at the same degree, this is what's known as a draft. If you have a house with a run affixed after that the factors above are still true, yet you need to also think about the run size. The EU optimum lawful stocking density for a cost-free range bird is (and also let's encounter it, among the motivations for keeping some chickens in the house is possibly enhanced or far better well-being) 2,500 birds per hectare, that's maximum one bird per 4m made even. Take a close look at some of the bargain residences - it could well be your home has the right perches, right air flow as well as adequate nest boxes for a practical variety of birds, but will each of the chickens have anything greater than an A4 sized piece of ground to invest the day on? And so as the claiming goes, "you get just what you pay for". You could think you've got a bargain, however you and also your flock could rue the day you did. Purchase the ideal house as well as it will last for a couple of years, if not longer given the right treatment. Eventually your poultry and also your poultry keeping experience will certainly be a lot the much better for it.diy plans
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