Chicken Coops for Sale in Spring Creek, Pennsylvania
Chicken Coops for Sale in Spring Creek, 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 Accessories in Spring Creek, Pennsylvania
A good place to start any search is the internet. Simply plugging in the phrase "chicken coops for sale in Spring Creek 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 Spring Creek Pennsylvania chicken coops. What to look for when buying a chicken coop in Spring Creek, Pennsylvania With the huge increase in chicken keeping there has been a similarly huge rise in the range of fowl stuff on sale. Chicken real estate is a situation in factor. It's also a traditional instance of the great old bandwagon being jumped on as different potential fowl housing experts market a variety of cottage declaring to be the ideal solution to your chicken housing demands. Usually the cost looks attractive, your diy-chicken-coop-planshome looks attractive, hell also the clean-cut household standing there feeding the chickens look attractive. Certainly they know a quality chicken house when they see one? There are lots of low-cost and also unpleasant cages flooding the market. I understand this as I've tested a number of them in the field, and also seen a ewe run straight through one when the feed pail appeared. The outcome was just a pricey heap of fire wood as well as a little group of bemused as well as currently homeless bantams.
Baby Chick Care in Spring Creek, Pennsylvania
Generally these mass produced designs are built of rapid grown up lumber - come the initial decrease of rain they swell, leaving you either barricading a doorway that will not shut, or ripping the doorway furniture off in a vain effort to release the squawking occupants. The initial warm day suggests the wood dries and cracks, the felt roofing system bubbles and also boils, as well as come nightfall the hens refuse to enter. This is not as a result of their dissatisfaction at the decrease of their when eye-catching home however due to the fact that the hovel is currently a place for, and probably crawling with, the chicken caretaker's nemesis, red mite. Add on the fact that it claimed on the blurb that it would certainly suit four huge hens when that equipping density 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 ought to cost you around ₤ 300 though this can depend on whether you choose for a totally free standing house or one with a run affixed. Assuming you are ranging your birds in a huge room and also the pop opening door allows enough for the type you keep, then the major needs of real estate boil down to three factors which will specify the variety of birds the house will certainly hold; perches, nest boxes as well as air flow. Most types of chicken will perch when they go to roost in the evening, this perch needs to ideally be 5-8cm large with smoothed off edges so the foot sits conveniently on it. The perch ought to be more than the nest box entry as chickens will also naturally seek 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 the most poo) bring about stained eggs the following day. They should not however be so high off the floor of the house that leg injuries could happen when the bird gets down in the early morning. Chickens require about 20cm of perch each (in tiny types this is undoubtedly less), plus if more than one perch is installed in your home they must be greater than 30cm apart. They will hunker up with their next-door neighbors however are not that crazy about roosting with a beak in the bloomers of the bird in front. Preferably your home should have a least one nest box for every three birds and also these must be off the ground and also in the darkest area of your house. The house must have ample ventilation: without it after that condensation will certainly accumulate every evening, even in the chilliest of weather. Know, air flow works with the principle of warm and comfortable air leaving with a high void drawing cooler air in from a lower space - it's not a collection of openings on contrary walls of your house and also at the same level, this is exactly what's called a draught. If you have a house with a run attached then the factors above are still real, yet you need to additionally consider the run size. The EU optimum lawful equipping thickness for a totally free variety bird is (and let's face it, one of the motivations for keeping some chickens in the house is perhaps boosted or 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 houses - it could well be the house has the best perches, right ventilation and also ample nest boxes for an affordable variety of birds, but will each of the chickens have anything more than an A4 sized piece of ground to invest the day on? Therefore as the stating goes, "you get exactly what you spend for". You might think you've got hold of a bargain, but you and also your group might rue the day you did. Acquisition the right house and it will certainly last for a few years, if not longer provided the right therapy. In the end your poultry as well as your poultry keeping experience will be much the much better for it.for sale coops
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