Chicken Coops for Sale in Telford, Pennsylvania
Chicken Coops for Sale in Telford, 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 Yard Design in Telford, Pennsylvania
A good place to start any search is the internet. Simply plugging in the phrase "chicken coops for sale in Telford 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 Telford Pennsylvania chicken coops. What to look for when buying a chicken coop in Telford, Pennsylvania With the significant increase in chicken keeping there has been a just as big increase in the variety of chicken materiel for sale. Poultry housing is a situation in point. It's also a classic instance of the great old bandwagon being jumped on as various potential chicken housing experts market a variety of holiday accommodation asserting to be the excellent option to your chicken housing demands. Usually the cost looks desirable, your diy-chicken-coop-planshome looks eye-catching, heck also the clean-cut family standing there feeding the chickens look eye-catching. Definitely they know a quality chicken house when they see one? There are lots of cheap and also awful cages swamping the market. I know this as I've examined a number of them in the area, and also seen a ewe run straight with one when the feed pail appeared. The result was only a costly heap of firewood and also a tiny group of bemused as well as currently homeless bantams.
Chicken Coop Kits in Telford, Pennsylvania
Usually these standardized versions are constructed of fast grown up wood - come the very first decline of rain they swell, leaving you either barricading a doorway that will not shut, or ripping the door furnishings off in a vain attempt to launch the squawking occupants. The initial warm and comfortable day means the timber dries and also splits, the really felt roof bubbles as well as boils, as well as come nightfall the hens refuse to enter. This is not because of their dissatisfaction at the decrease of their as soon as eye-catching residential property yet since the hovel is currently a place for, as well as possibly abounding, the fowl keeper's nemesis, red mite. Add on that it said on the blurb that it would certainly fit four huge hens when that stocking thickness was based on the Circle Line at 5pm on a Friday, and what are you left with? A couple of hinges and some kindling. A good coop for thee to 4 birds should cost you in the region of ₤ 300 though this can depend on whether you elect for a free standing house or one with a run attached. Thinking you are varying your birds in a large room as well as the pop hole doorway is big enough for the breed you keep, then the main needs of real estate boil down to three points which will certainly specify the variety of birds your house will hold; perches, nest boxes and air flow. A lot of breeds of chicken will certainly perch when they visit roost during the night, this perch needs to ideally be 5-8cm wide with smoothed off sides so the foot rests pleasantly on it. The perch should be above the nest box entrance as chickens will certainly likewise naturally seek the highest point to perch. A perch lower than that will have the birds roosting in the nest box overnight (which is incidentally when they generate the most poo) causing stained eggs the list below day. They shouldn't however be so high off the flooring of your house that leg injuries might take place when the bird gets down in the morning. Chickens require concerning 20cm of perch each (in small types this is obviously less), plus if more than one perch is set up in your home they must be more than 30cm apart. They will hunker up with their next-door neighbors but are not that keen on roosting with a beak in the bloomers of the bird in front. Ideally your home must have a least one nest box for every single three birds and these need to be off the ground and also in the darkest location of your house. Your home should have sufficient ventilation: without it after that condensation will accumulate every evening, even in the coldest of climate. Be aware, ventilation works on the principle of warm and comfortable air leaving with a high space attracting cooler air in from a lower void - it's not a collection of holes on opposite wall surfaces of your house and at the very same degree, this is just what's called a draught. If you have a house with a run connected then the points above are still true, yet you need to also consider the run size. The EU optimum lawful equipping density for a free range bird is (and let's face it, one of the inspirations for maintaining some chickens at home is perhaps enhanced or much better welfare) 2,500 birds each hectare, that's maximum one bird each 4m settled. Take a close check out some of the bargain residences - it could well be your house has the right perches, correct 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 spend the day on? And so as the stating goes, "you obtain exactly what you pay for". You may think you've grabbed a deal, however you and your flock could possibly rue the day you did. Acquisition the best house as well as it will last for a few decades, otherwise longer offered the correct treatment. Ultimately your fowl and your chicken keeping experience will certainly be a lot the far better for it.chick for sale
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