Chicken Coops for Sale in Lenhartsville, Pennsylvania
Chicken Coops for Sale in Lenhartsville, Pennsylvania
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 Setup in Lenhartsville, Pennsylvania
A good place to start any search is the internet. Simply plugging in the phrase "chicken coops for sale in Lenhartsville 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 Lenhartsville Pennsylvania chicken coops. What to look for when buying a chicken coop in Lenhartsville, Pennsylvania With the big increase in poultry maintaining there has been an equally big increase in the array of poultry materiel for sale. Fowl real estate is a proceedings in point. It's likewise a timeless instance of the great old bandwagon being got on as different prospective chicken housing professionals pitch a selection of cottage asserting to be the ideal option to your chicken housing requirements. Commonly the price looks appealing, your house looks eye-catching, hell even the clean-cut family members standing there feeding the chickens look desirable. Definitely they know a top quality chicken house when they see one? There are several affordable and also horrible cages swamping the marketplace. I understand this as I've tested a variety of them in the area, as well as seen a ewe run directly through one when the feed container showed up. The result was nothing but a pricey stack of fire wood and a little flock of bemused and also now homeless bantams.
Chicken Coop Ideas in Lenhartsville, Pennsylvania
Typically these mass produced versions are constructed of rapid grown hardwood - come the very first drop of rain they swell, leaving you either fortifying a doorway that won't shut, or ripping the doorway furniture off in a vain effort to release the squawking citizens. The initial cozy day implies the timber dries and cracks, the felt roofing system bubbles and boils, and also come nightfall the hens choose not to enter. This is not as a result of their disappointment at the decrease of their once appealing building yet considering that the hovel is currently a sanctuary for, and also most likely abounding, the poultry caretaker's bane, red mite. Add on the fact that it stated on the blurb that it would certainly suit four big hens when that stocking thickness was based upon the Circle Line at 5pm on a Friday, as well as just what are you entrusted? A number of joints as well as some kindling. A decent coop for thee to 4 birds should cost you in the region of ₤ 300 though this can rely on whether you elect for a cost-free standing house or one with a run attached. Presuming you are varying your birds in a big room and also the pop hole door allows sufficient for the type you maintain, after that the major needs of real estate come down to 3 factors which will specify the variety of birds the house will hold; perches, nest boxes and also ventilation. The majority of breeds of chicken will perch when they visit roost at night, this perch ought to preferably be 5-8cm large with smoothed off sides so the foot rests easily on it. The perch should be above the nest box entry as chickens will certainly likewise naturally search for the acme to perch. A perch lower than that will certainly have the birds roosting in the nest box over night (which is by the way when they produce one of the most poo) causing stained eggs the list below day. They shouldn't nevertheless be so high off the flooring of your home that leg injuries can take place when the bird comes down in the early morning. Chickens need concerning 20cm of perch each (in small types this is certainly much less), plus if greater than one perch is mounted in the house they ought to be more 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 ahead. Preferably your house ought to have a least one nest box for every 3 birds and also these need to be off the ground and in the darkest location of your home. Your home needs to have ample ventilation: without it after that condensation will accumulate every night, also in the chilliest of weather condition. Understand, air flow works on the concept of warm and comfortable air leaving through a high space drawing cooler air in from a lower void - it's not a set of holes on opposite walls of your house and also at the very same degree, this is just what's called a draught. If you have a house with a run connected after that the points above are still true, however you should likewise take into consideration the run size. The EU optimum legal equipping density for a free array bird is (as well as let's face it, among the motivations for maintaining some hens in your home is potentially boosted or better welfare) 2,500 birds each hectare, that's optimal one bird each 4m squared. Take a close take a look at several of the bargain homes - it could well be your house has the best perches, proper air flow and also sufficient nest boxes for a reasonable number 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 claiming goes, "you obtain what you pay for". You could think you've got hold of a bargain, however you and your flock might rue the day you did. Acquisition the best house and also it will certainly last for a couple of years, if not longer given the proper treatment. Eventually your poultry and also your poultry keeping experience will be a lot the better for it.coops for sale
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