Chicken Coops for Sale in Shamrock, Texas
Chicken Coops for Sale in Shamrock, Texas
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.
Read more on urban farming:
Share this:
Chicken Coop Kits For Sale in Shamrock, Texas
A good place to start any search is the internet. Simply plugging in the phrase "chicken coops for sale in Shamrock Texas" 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 Shamrock Texas chicken coops. What to look for when buying a chicken coop in Shamrock, Texas With the significant increase in poultry maintaining there has actually been an equally big surge in the range of chicken paraphernalia on sale. Poultry real estate is a proceedings in factor. It's also a traditional example of the good old bandwagon being got on as various prospective fowl housing professionals market a selection of cottage declaring to be the excellent option to your chicken real estate requirements. Commonly the rate looks attractive, the house looks appealing, hell also the clean-cut household standing there feeding the chickens look appealing. Definitely they know a quality chicken house when they see one? There are lots of cheap and also nasty cages swamping the marketplace. I recognize this as I've checked a variety of them in the field, and also seen a ewe run straight via one when the feed pail appeared. The result was just a pricey stack of fire wood and a small group of bemused and also currently homeless bantams.
Chicken Coop Run Plans in Shamrock, Texas
More often than not these standardized versions are built of quick grown up wood - come the very first decrease of rainfall they swell, leaving you either blockading a doorway that won't close, or tearing the doorway furnishings off in a vain effort to launch the squawking occupants. The initial warm and comfortable day suggests the wood dries out and fractures, the felt roof bubbles and also boils, and come nightfall the hens choose not to enter. This is not because of their disappointment at the decline of their as soon as eye-catching building but due to the fact that the hovel is currently a place for, as well as possibly crawling with, the fowl keeper's bane, red mite. Add on the fact that it stated on the blurb that it would certainly suit 4 large chickens when that equipping density was based upon the Circle Line at 5pm on a Friday, and also just what are you entrusted? A few hinges as well as some kindling. A suitable coop for thee to 4 birds should cost you around ₤ 300 though this could rely on whether you choose for a cost-free standing house or one with a run connected. Presuming you are ranging your birds in a large room and also the pop hole door is big enough for the breed you maintain, then the primary requirements of real estate boil down to three points which will define the variety of birds your home will hold; perches, nest boxes and also air flow. A lot of breeds of chicken will certainly perch when they visit roost at night, this perch must preferably be 5-8cm broad with smoothed off sides so the foot sits comfortably on it. The perch should be higher than the nest box access as chickens will likewise naturally try to find the highest point to perch. A perch lower than that will certainly have the birds roosting in the nest box overnight (which is by the way when they create the most poo) bring about soiled eggs the list below day. They should not however be so high off the flooring of your home that leg injuries could possibly happen when the bird gets down in the early morning. Chickens require regarding 20cm of perch each (in little breeds this is obviously much less), plus if greater than one perch is mounted in your home they must be greater 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 ahead. Preferably your house ought to have a least one nest box for every three birds as well as these ought to be off the ground and also in the darkest location of your home. Your home must have sufficient ventilation: without it after that condensation will accumulate every night, even in the coldest of climate. Be aware, ventilation works on the principle of warm air leaving via a high gap drawing cooler air in from a reduced gap - it's not a collection of holes on other wall surfaces of the house and also at the very same degree, this is exactly what's known as a draft. If you have a house with a run connected then the factors above are still true, yet you ought to also take into consideration the run size. The EU maximum lawful equipping density for a totally free range bird is (as well as allow's face it, one of the inspirations for maintaining some hens at home is potentially improved or far better welfare) 2,500 birds per hectare, that's maximum one bird each 4m made even. Take a close look at a few of the deal residences - it could well be your house has the ideal perches, correct air flow and also ample nest boxes for a practical number of birds, but will each of the chickens have anything more than an A4 sized item of ground to spend the day on? And so as the stating goes, "you get just what you spend for". You could assume you've grabbed a bargain, but you and your group could rue the day you did. Acquisition the best house and it will certainly last for a few decades, otherwise longer provided the right treatment. Eventually your poultry as well as your poultry keeping encounter will certainly be a lot the much better for it.diy chicken
More Posts
Chicken Coops for Sale in Olmito, Texas
Chicken Coops for Sale in Bogata, Texas
Chicken Coops for Sale in Bledsoe, Texas
Chicken Coops for Sale in Art, Texas
Chicken Coops for Sale in Moody, Texas