Chicken Coops for Sale in East Vandergrift, Pennsylvania
Chicken Coops for Sale in East Vandergrift, Pennsylvania
Chicken coops for beginners – a primer!
Your chickens will need a safe dry and well ventilated place to roost at night or to be in bad weather. So here is a chicken coops for beginners primer!
Just cute chicks!
Chicken coops for beginners – things to consider!
We have had a variety of coops since we first started with chickens. We have had old wooden crates converted to a basic house through to our latest construction. We have learned much from each design and have tried to build a better coop for both the chickens and us each time we have had to reconstruct. The only reoccurring theme is that we have tried to use as many recycled items as we could….more to save costs than any other noble reason.
To get some inspiration, have a look at .
The chickens in the new coop
Here are the things that we now consider when we are designing our coops.
Safe Is the coop secure from other animals trying to get in? Here in the NE of the USA we worry about foxes, coyotes, raccoons etc. So it needs to be a design that can’t be broken into, ripped open, lifted up or turned over. In Australia I would be also trying to keep out snakes. Out coop lets in a chipmunk and a squirrel – they get a free feed but don’t do any other damage.
Airy Even in our cold climate, we have a well ventilated coop. Chickens seem to cope extremely well in the cold (ours did great in three months of very bitter winter when it did not get above freezing). So they don’t need a coop that is centrally heated. So good ventilation without being breezy on the birds is perfect.
Chickens on ice!
You don’t need it be be insulated and have central heating. On the really cold days and nights when the thermometer reading was way below freezing we run a red heating lamp to provide a little comfort.
Dry Damp chickens are not happy chickens…and will probably end up as sick chickens. Your coop needs to always be dry. So it has to be up off the ground, a roof to stop rain and/or snow dripping in and a way to open it up in case it does get damp inside. We have stopped providing drinking water in our coop unless its winter (with a water warmer) because the chickens just made a wet mess!
Roosting poles
Chickens need to be able to roost on a perch to sleep, just like all birds do at night (ok …emus don’t). Your chickens needs to have an old broom handle, tree branch or other item to settle on inside the coop. We have four feet of old curtain rod and all six adult birds are very happy. When we get more chickens (the coop could take another dozen) we will install more perches.The new coop’s roosting pole.
Nesting boxes Your girls will appreciate a place to lay their eggs. Some people like to build nesting boxes inside the coop. We found that having nesting boxes that have easy access for humans to collect eggs are great, however our free ranging girls like to lay in a spot in our barn rather than the nesting boxes. Inside our coop the nesting boxes are cut down plastic buckets and these are only used if we are late in letting them out and one girl just can’t wait.
The plastic nesting boxes
Easy to clean We use the deep litter method – which is just code for laying a deep pile of old hay onto the floor of the coop. We clean it out every few months and find that it works great. On past coops it was quite a chore to get into the coop and clean it. With our current design we made a flap on one wall so we have great access for cleaning. We also made the coop tall and added two cut down doors so we can get inside both from the outside and from inside the barn in winter.
Front of the coop – see the lower flap we can open to clean it out – now its a 5 min job!
Chicken coops for beginners – why do it!
Building the coop can be a great family affair. We collected materials from our dump for a few months and then built the structure as a lean-to off the barn. That way we could have a door to the inside of the barn so during winter the chickens could use the barn to roam around if they did not want to venture out into the snow. We also have a door on the outside of the coop and a window on the south side – so it gets loads of light and is easy to clean and air out.
The coop framed up
Coop finished
So far this chicken coop has been perfect! Easy for us to get into. Easy to clean. But most of all, the chickens seem happy to call it home! Using recycled materials has kept our costs low as well!
Jen and Madie ‘fancy up’ the coop with paint.
We hope this chicken coops for beginners primer will help you have happier and safer chickens!
Chicken Coop Boxes in East Vandergrift, Pennsylvania
A good place to start any search is the internet. Simply plugging in the phrase "chicken coops for sale in East Vandergrift 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 Vandergrift Pennsylvania chicken coops. What to look for when buying a chicken coop in East Vandergrift, Pennsylvania With the huge rise in poultry keeping there has been an equally huge rise in the array of fowl stuff on sale. Chicken housing is a situation in factor. It's additionally a traditional instance of the good old bandwagon being got on as various potential poultry housing experts peddle a range of accommodation asserting to be the perfect option to your chicken housing demands. Often the price looks desirable, the house looks attractive, hell also the clean-cut family standing there feeding the chickens look appealing. Undoubtedly they recognize a professional chicken house when they see one? There are numerous inexpensive as well as nasty coops flooding the market. I understand this as I've examined a number of them in the field, and also seen a ewe run directly via one when the feed bucket appeared. The result was nothing but an expensive stack of fire wood and a tiny flock of bemused and now homeless bantams.
Chicken Coop Large in East Vandergrift, Pennsylvania
Usually these standardized versions are built of rapid grown hardwood - come the very first decrease of rainfall they swell, leaving you either barricading a door that won't close, or tearing the doorway furniture off in a vain effort to launch the squawking inhabitants. The very first warm day implies the lumber dries and cracks, the felt roof bubbles and also boils, as well as come nightfall the chickens choose not to enter. This is not due to their disappointment at the decrease of their as soon as appealing commercial property however considering that the hovel is now a place for, and possibly crawling with, the chicken caretaker's bane, red mite. Add the fact that it stated on the blurb that it would suit four large chickens when that equipping thickness was based upon the Circle Line at 5pm on a Friday, and also what are you entrusted? A couple of hinges and some kindling. A suitable coop for thee to four birds ought to cost you around ₤ 300 though this can depend upon whether you choose for a free standing house or one with a run affixed. Presuming you are ranging your birds in a large space and also the pop opening doorway allows sufficient for the breed you keep, then the main requirements of housing come down to three factors which will certainly define the number of birds the house will hold; perches, nest boxes and also air flow. A lot of breeds of chicken will perch when they visit roost during the night, this perch ought to preferably be 5-8cm broad with smoothed off sides so the foot rests easily on it. The perch should be more than the nest box entry as chickens will certainly additionally normally try to find the highest point to perch. A perch less than that will certainly have the birds roosting in the nest box over night (which is by the way when they generate one of the most poo) causing dirtied eggs the list below day. They should not however be so high off the floor of the house that leg injuries might take place when the bird comes down in the early morning. Chickens require about 20cm of perch each (in tiny breeds this is obviously less), plus if greater than one perch is installed in the house they need to 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 ahead. Preferably your home ought to have a least one nest box for every single three birds and these need to be off the ground as well as in the darkest area of the house. The house needs to have sufficient ventilation: without it then condensation will certainly build up every night, even in the chilliest of weather. Know, ventilation deals with the concept of warm and comfortable air leaving through a high gap attracting cooler air in from a lower space - it's not a collection of holes on opposite walls of the house as well as at the exact same degree, this is what's known as a draft. If you have a house with a run connected after that the points above are still true, however you need to likewise take into consideration the run size. The EU optimum lawful equipping thickness for a cost-free range bird is (and let's encounter it, one of the motivations for maintaining some chickens in your home is perhaps boosted or better welfare) 2,500 birds per hectare, that's optimal one bird each 4m settled. Take a close look at several of the bargain homes - it could well be your home has the right perches, right ventilation as well as enough nest boxes for a reasonable variety of birds, yet will each of the chickens have anything greater than an A4 sized piece of ground to invest the day on? Therefore as the stating goes, "you obtain what you pay for". You may think you've got a deal, yet you and your flock can rue the day you did. Purchase the ideal house and it will last for a couple of years, otherwise longer offered the correct treatment. Eventually your fowl and your poultry maintaining encounter will be a lot the far better for it.build chicken
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