Chicken Coops for Sale in Manderson, South Dakota
Chicken Coops for Sale in Manderson, South Dakota
Transform Your Little Tikes Playhouse into a Chicken Coop
When I started pestering my husband about chickens (again), I knew I was fighting an uphill battle. He did not want to spend a bunch of money and time on the construction of a suitable coop. We’d already been down the road of improper chicken housing before, and it wasn’t a road that either of us wanted to travel again. But I really, REALLY wanted to give chicken keeping another try. And I thought that with a little bit of forethought, we could eliminate the challenges we ran into before. For starters, the birds would need enough space. And the coop would need to be easy to clean. And most importantly, the coop would need to be secure. Nothing like coming home to find your chickens walking along the 6′ high wall that surrounds your yard! But to construct this type of set up from scratch would cost quite a bit of money in materials, not to mention all the time and sweat it would take for the hubs to actually BUILD the thing.
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So then I started scouring the internet trying to find the best deal on a “coop in a box”. I had my eye on but the price tag was a bit hefty. (It’s actually on sale for 58% off right now if you happen to be in the market for a pre-fabricated coop!) Not only was the hubs not excited about building a chicken coop, he also wasn’t excited about the idea of another “thing” in the yard. Our yard was already overrun with toys, bikes, gardening tools, a composter, and our very well-loved Little Tikes Playhouse. So as I sat in the yard one spring evening watching the kids play with everything BUT the playhouse, I got to thinking… Why couldn’t we just turn the playhouse into a chicken coop?!?! I didn’t tell hubs about the idea right away. Instead, I began looking at the structure of the playhouse to see if my idea would even work. Guys, I swear, this thing was MADE to become a chicken coop! It had everything we needed! The house is large enough for me to walk inside to rake it out, it has plenty of space for a nesting box, waterer, food, and a roosting bar. And it even came with a little cut out section near the floor (picture a doggy door) so the chickens could access the run we built behind it! I sketched out an idea of the modifications that we would need to make, and I presented my idea to the hubs. Guess what? He went for it! It was PERFECT. The structure was already built. We wouldn’t have to add another “thing” to our already tiny yard, and the best part? It’s totally incognito. No one would EVER suspect chickens were living in the playhouse! That night, I ordered our chicks! So how did we transform the playhouse? Well, let’s take a tour, shall we?
The first thing we did was cover all the openings with garden wire. Hubs had a roll of this laying around from some other project. He used drywall screws to attach the wire to the windows. The coop actually stayed like this for a while. While the chicks were still small, it was best for them to be confined to a smaller space, so not having a run wasn’t an issue.
Next the hubs built the run. You can see the “doggy door” in the bottom left corner…this is how the chickens get in and out of the house. The run is a pretty simple A-frame structure made out of 1″x 1″ pine pieces. The frame was made in sections and the wire was screwed on to each section as it was assembled. The top of the run lifts up so I can climb in and rake out the poo. I just prop it open with an upside down rake and jump on in.
The corners are all secured with these nifty . And the whole top piece is attached to the frame with some thin chains that act as a hinge. Here is a picture of the chains.
The brown plastic covering you see on this window is actually the cover to our sand and water table. The hubs cut it to fit over the largest window to break some of the wind in the winter. He used more drywall screws to attach it to the house.
Inside the coop, we attached a roosting bar (made out of an old broom handle) to the side of the house using a simple scrap of wood to attach it.
Here is a look at one side of the roosting bar. The other side just sits on the “mantle” inside the house.
My favorite part about the coop is the nesting box. Hubs attached a recycling bin to the wall using a couple brackets. It’s the PERFECT size for a comfy chicken laying box. And it’s up high so there’s a little privacy. We did cut it down a bit…chickens are not very bright creatures…they were afraid to go inside when the lip of the box was up higher.
The is hung from the ceiling by a thin chain (to keep the birds from standing on it), and the just sits on the floor. The set up is working BRILLIANTLY for us. The birds are happy and laying an egg per chicken per day (even though it’s winter), and it is all super easy to care for. The best part is that we were able to make this transformation for a whopping $46. I can’t say enough about how awesome chicken are…I’m pretty sure my kiddos would agree! Think you might transform your little tikes playhouse into a chicken coop?
Here is the complete list of materials and tools we used to make our playhouse into a chicken coop. Our chickens have been living in the coop for 8 months, and it’s still holding up great!
Hardware
- , to secure wire to playhouse
- to secure wire to wood frame
- to hang feeder from inside coop
Tools
- – for cutting the wire
- (for pounding staples)
- for cutting 1 1/2″ pieces of wood
Chicken Coop Pictures in Manderson, South Dakota
A good place to start any search is the internet. Simply plugging in the phrase "chicken coops for sale in Manderson South Dakota" 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 Manderson South Dakota chicken coops. What to look for when buying a chicken coop in Manderson, South Dakota With the massive rise in poultry maintaining there has been a just as huge increase in the array of fowl materiel for sale. Fowl real estate is a proceedings in point. It's also a traditional instance of the great old bandwagon being got on as various prospective chicken real estate experts pitch a variety of cottage asserting to be the optimal remedy to your chicken real estate requirements. Typically the price looks attractive, your house looks appealing, hell even the clean-cut household standing there feeding the chickens look appealing. Definitely they understand a professional chicken house when they see one? There are lots of inexpensive and awful cages flooding the market. I know this as I've tested a variety of them in the field, as well as seen a ewe run straight with one when the feed bucket showed up. The result was just a costly heap of fire wood and a little flock of bemused as well as currently homeless bantams.
Chicken Coop Kits Cheap in Manderson, South Dakota
Generally these mass produced models are built of fast grown timber - come the first decrease of rainfall they swell, leaving you either fortifying a door that won't shut, or ripping the doorway furniture off in a vain effort to launch the squawking inhabitants. The very first warm and comfortable day indicates the wood dries and also cracks, the felt roof covering bubbles and also boils, and come nightfall the chickens refuse to go in. This is not due to their dissatisfaction at the decrease of their as soon as attractive property but due to the fact that the hovel is now a sanctuary for, as well as most likely crawling with, the poultry keeper's bane, red mite. Add on that it stated on the blurb that it would certainly match four huge chickens when that stocking 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 suitable coop for thee to four birds should cost you in the region of ₤ 300 though this could rely on whether you elect for a totally free standing house or one with a run affixed. Presuming you are ranging your birds in a large room and the pop opening doorway allows sufficient for the type you maintain, then the main requirements of housing come down to 3 points which will certainly specify the variety of birds the house will hold; perches, nest boxes as well as air flow. Many types of chicken will certainly perch when they visit roost at night, this perch ought to ideally be 5-8cm large with smoothed off edges so the foot sits easily on it. The perch must be higher than the nest box access as chickens will additionally normally look for the acme to perch. A perch less than that will have the birds roosting in the nest box over night (which is by the way when they produce one of the most poo) causing dirtied eggs the following day. They should not however be so high off the floor of the house that leg injuries could occur when the bird comes down in the early morning. Chickens need regarding 20cm of perch each (in small breeds this is certainly much less), plus if more than one perch is set up in your home they ought to 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 ahead. Preferably your home needs to have a least one nest box for every single three birds as well as these need to be off the ground as well as in the darkest location of your home. Your home ought to have adequate ventilation: without it after that condensation will certainly build up every evening, also in the chilliest of climate. Know, ventilation works on the principle of warm and comfortable air leaving through a high void attracting cooler air in from a reduced void - it's not a set of holes on other wall surfaces of your house and also at the same level, this is exactly what's known as a draft. If you have a house with a run connected after that the points above are still true, yet you must likewise consider the run size. The EU optimum legal equipping thickness for a totally free range bird is (and allow's face it, one of the inspirations for keeping some hens in your home is possibly boosted or far better well-being) 2,500 birds each hectare, that's maximum one bird per 4m made even. Take a close check out some of the bargain houses - it could well be your house has the ideal perches, correct ventilation and also enough nest boxes for a practical number of birds, but will each of the chickens have anything greater than an A4 sized piece of ground to spend the day on? Therefore as the claiming goes, "you get just what you spend for". You could believe you've grabbed a bargain, however you and your flock could possibly rue the day you did. Acquisition the ideal house and it will certainly last for a few years, otherwise longer offered the correct treatment. In the end your chicken as well as your poultry keeping encounter will be much the far better for it.chickens coops
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