Chicken Coops for Sale in Koppel, Pennsylvania
Chicken Coops for Sale in Koppel, Pennsylvania
Chicken Coops — The Top 5 Requirements
Chicken Coops – What You Need
Happy, healthy chickens need proper housing, but knowing what you need may seem daunting. Don’t let choosing the house for your chickens intimidate you. Meeting the needs of your flock, whether building your own chicken castle or buying ready-made, is easy and should provide for four basic needs.
- Protection from the elements
- Protection from predators
- Place for laying eggs
- A roost at night
The Components of a Chicken Coop
As I wrote in my , chickens have an innate homing instinct, keeping your flock close to home. Our feathered kids are such home bodies that even free ranging, every night before sundown all our chickens are perched in the coop. I always recommend a protected place for your flock to come home and roost for the night, even when free ranging.
You don’t need a poultry castle for your chickens to come home to. come in many shapes, sizes, and designs, from fancy to plain. Believe it or not, your chickens won’t care what the coop looks like as long as it provides the above four basic needs.
With that said, before deciding what type of coop you are going to buy or build, you must determine what coop features are needed that most closely conform to a chicken’s natural behavior. Hopefully I can help you understand what you need in the design of your chicken coop.
The Basics
Let’s start with the basics. All chicken coops need 3 things; a roof, 4 walls, and a doorway for entering and leaving. The design and the materials used for the chicken coop is up to you. As long as it is mostly draft free (you still need healthy ventilation), your choices are endless.
Your coop space is based on the number of chickens you plan to house. A good rule of thumb is 4 square feet of floor space per large chicken and 3 square feet for the smaller bantam breeds. Also consider the ease of cleaning when choosing your coop design; you’ll be glad you did.
Security
Making a chicken coop predator free is the most important part of building a home for your flock. Your coop must be secure from the top, bottom, and all sides. When looking at any pre-made coop or chicken coop building plans, consider all angles for security. Not only should you consider the security of the coop itself, but the security of the yard and run as well.
When choosing the wire for your run and coop, we advise steering clear of standard chicken wire. While it works well for keeping your chickens contained it’s not entirely predator proof. Because the holes in standard chicken wire are large, coyotes, raccoons, and foxes can still reach through the mesh, causing harm to your chickens. Always use a small hole wire like hardware cloth with ½ inch openings.
Another consideration when building the chicken yard or run, is airborne predators like hawks. You must include covering the top of the run as well. Our chicken runs use the same size mesh fencing on the top as the sides.
Finally, there are predators from below, such as rats and mice. These critters are attracted to the feed and droppings and like to burrow under your coop. Protect your chickens by using a coop with a floor built into it or burying small mesh fencing below the coop and extending it about 12 inches out on all sides.
The Outside Run
All coops need a connecting chicken run or pen. Chickens need access to the outside to do all those “chicken things”, like dirt baths, catching bugs, scratching dirt, or just relaxing in the sunshine or shade.
Ideally, your chicken run should have 10 square feet of ground space per full size chicken. The smaller bantam breeds require less, about 7 square feet per chicken. If your chickens free range the majority of the day, you can get by with less space.
Laying Boxes
If you want eggs, you need laying boxes. These can be as fancy or as plain as you like, just as long as they are about 12” x 12” and raised off the ground a few inches. You need one box for every 4 laying hens. Boxes should comfortably fit the chicken and have low enough sides for the hens to step over. Be sure to keep your boxes lined with clean straw or other bedding.
Roosting Perches
All birds roost, including chickens. Your coop needs a roosting bar or something off the ground on which your chickens can perch. We strongly suggest having perches both inside the coop and outside in the run area.
When figuring roosting pole size, provide 5-10” of space per chicken and 10” of space between each pole if you are using more than one. Multiple poles also need grading like ladders so the farthest pole is several inches higher than the next.
There are many shapes, sizes, and styles of chicken coops to choose from. Making the right choice for your needs is important, and all coops need to contain all necessary elements.
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Chicken Coop Door in Koppel, Pennsylvania
A good place to start any search is the internet. Simply plugging in the phrase "chicken coops for sale in Koppel 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 Koppel Pennsylvania chicken coops. What to look for when buying a chicken coop in Koppel, Pennsylvania With the massive boost in poultry maintaining there has been an equally big rise in the range of fowl paraphernalia for sale. Fowl real estate is a case in point. It's also a timeless instance of the good old bandwagon being jumped on as numerous potential poultry real estate professionals market a selection of holiday accommodation asserting to be the excellent solution to your chicken housing requirements. Often the price looks attractive, the house looks desirable, heck also the clean-cut family members standing there feeding the chickens look appealing. Surely they know a high quality chicken house when they see one? There are numerous cheap as well as unpleasant coops flooding the market. I recognize this as I've checked a variety of them in the field, and seen a ewe run straight with one when the feed bucket appeared. The result was just a costly pile of firewood and a tiny flock of bemused as well as now homeless bantams.
Chicken Coop Construction in Koppel, Pennsylvania
Generally these mass produced models are created of quick grown timber - come the first decline of rainfall they swell, leaving you either defending a doorway that won't close, or ripping the doorway furnishings off in a vain attempt to release the squawking residents. The first warm day means the hardwood dries as well as fractures, the really felt roof covering bubbles and also boils, and come nightfall the chickens choose not to enter. This is not as a result of their disappointment at the decline of their once desirable building however due to the fact that the hovel is now a haven for, and also probably crawling with, the chicken caretaker's nemesis, red mite. Add that it said on the blurb that it would certainly match 4 big chickens when that stocking thickness was based on the Circle Line at 5pm on a Friday, and what are you left with? A couple of joints and also some kindling. A suitable coop for thee to four birds ought to cost you in the region of ₤ 300 though this can rely on whether you elect for a free standing house or one with a run attached. Thinking you are ranging your birds in a large area as well as the pop hole doorway is big sufficient for the breed you maintain, after that the main needs of real estate come down to three points which will define the number of birds your house will certainly hold; perches, nest boxes and also ventilation. Many breeds of chicken will perch when they visit roost at night, this perch ought to preferably be 5-8cm vast with smoothed off edges so the foot rests comfortably on it. The perch should be above the nest box entry as chickens will also normally search for the acme to perch. A perch less than that will certainly have the birds roosting in the nest box over night (which is incidentally when they produce one of the most poo) resulting in stained eggs the following day. They shouldn't nevertheless be so high off the floor of your house that leg injuries could possibly take place when the bird gets down in the early morning. Chickens need concerning 20cm of perch each (in small breeds this is obviously much less), plus if greater than one perch is set up in your house they should be more than 30cm apart. They will hunker up with their neighbors however are not that crazy about roosting with a beak in the bloomers of the bird in front. Ideally the house must have a least one nest box for each three birds as well as these must be off the ground and also in the darkest area of the house. The house ought to have adequate ventilation: without it after that condensation will develop every night, also in the chilliest of climate. Be aware, ventilation works on the concept of warm air leaving with a high space drawing cooler air in from a reduced gap - it's not a collection of holes on opposite wall surfaces of your house as well as at the exact same degree, this is exactly what's called a draft. If you have a house with a run attached then the factors above are still real, yet you should also think about the run dimension. The EU maximum legal stocking density for a complimentary array bird is (as well as allow's face it, one of the motivations for maintaining some hens in your home is potentially improved or much better welfare) 2,500 birds per hectare, that's maximum one bird per 4m made even. Take a close consider several of the bargain homes - it could well be the house has the ideal perches, proper air flow as well as sufficient 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 spend the day on? And so as the saying goes, "you get what you pay for". You may assume you've got a deal, however you and your flock might rue the day you did. Acquisition the right house as well as it will certainly last for a few decades, if not longer given the correct therapy. In the end your chicken and your poultry maintaining experience will be a lot the better for it.chicken plan
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