Chicken Coops for Sale in Clemson, South Carolina
Chicken Coops for Sale in Clemson, South Carolina
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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Baby Chicks in Clemson, South Carolina
A good place to start any search is the internet. Simply plugging in the phrase "chicken coops for sale in Clemson South Carolina" 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 Clemson South Carolina chicken coops. What to look for when buying a chicken coop in Clemson, South Carolina With the massive increase in poultry maintaining there has been an equally large rise in the array of poultry materiel on sale. Chicken real estate is a proceedings in factor. It's also a classic instance of the good old bandwagon being jumped on as different potential chicken housing experts pitch a variety of cottage declaring to be the suitable remedy to your chicken housing demands. Commonly the cost looks desirable, the house looks attractive, heck even the clean-cut family members standing there feeding the chickens look desirable. Surely they understand a top quality chicken house when they see one? There are several low-cost and nasty coops flooding the market. I understand this as I've examined a number of them in the area, and also seen a ewe run straight via one when the feed bucket appeared. The result was just an expensive pile of fire wood and a tiny flock of bemused as well as now homeless bantams.
Baby Yellow Chick in Clemson, South Carolina
Generally these standardized designs are built of quick grown hardwood - come the very first decrease of rain they swell, leaving you either blockading a door that won't shut, or tearing the doorway furniture off in a vain effort to release the squawking occupants. The first warm and comfortable day means the wood dries out and cracks, the really felt roof bubbles and boils, and also come nightfall the hens refuse to enter. This is not because of their disappointment at the decline of their as soon as desirable residential property yet because the hovel is currently a place for, and also possibly abounding, the poultry caretaker's nemesis, red mite. Add the fact that it said on the blurb that it would certainly match 4 huge chickens when that stocking density was based upon the Circle Line at 5pm on a Friday, as well as exactly what are you entrusted? A few hinges and also some kindling. A decent coop for thee to four birds need to cost you approximately ₤ 300 though this can depend upon whether you choose for a free standing house or one with a run connected. Presuming you are ranging your birds in a huge room and the pop opening doorway allows sufficient for the breed you maintain, after that the primary needs of housing come down to three factors which will specify the variety of birds your home will hold; perches, nest boxes and ventilation. The majority of types of chicken will certainly perch when they visit roost during the night, this perch must preferably be 5-8cm vast with smoothed off sides so the foot sits comfortably on it. The perch needs to be higher than the nest box entrance as chickens will additionally normally look for the highest point to perch. A perch below that will certainly have the birds roosting in the nest box over night (which is by the way when they produce the most poo) resulting in soiled eggs the list below day. They shouldn't nonetheless be so high off the flooring of your house that leg injuries can take place when the bird gets down in the early morning. Chickens require about 20cm of perch each (in little types this is certainly less), plus if greater than one perch is installed in your house they must be more than 30cm apart. They will hunker up with their neighbors but are not that crazy about roosting with a beak in the bloomers of the bird in front. Preferably the house ought to have a the very least one nest box for every 3 birds and these need to be off the ground as well as in the darkest location of the house. Your house must have appropriate ventilation: without it after that condensation will certainly accumulate every night, even in the chilliest of climate. Understand, air flow deals with the principle of cozy air leaving with a high gap drawing cooler air in from a reduced void - it's not a set of holes on opposite wall surfaces of your house as well as at the exact same degree, this is exactly what's referred to as a draft. If you have a house with a run affixed then the factors above are still true, yet you should also take into consideration the run dimension. The EU maximum lawful stocking thickness for a totally free array bird is (and also let's face it, one of the inspirations for keeping some chickens in the house is perhaps enhanced or far better well-being) 2,500 birds each hectare, that's optimal one bird each 4m made even. Take a close consider some of the bargain houses - it could well be your home has the right perches, proper ventilation and also adequate nest boxes for an affordable number of birds, yet will each of the chickens have anything more than an A4 sized item of ground to invest the day on? And so as the claiming goes, "you obtain what you spend for". You may assume you've grabbed a deal, yet you and your group could possibly rue the day you did. Acquisition the appropriate house and also it will certainly last for a few years, if not longer offered the proper therapy. Eventually your fowl as well as your fowl keeping encounter will be much the far better for it.chick chicken
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