Chicken Coops for Sale in Goodview, Virginia
Chicken Coops for Sale in Goodview, Virginia
Our Chicken Coop Design – Front Elevation (Part 2 of 3)
Okay, I lied. I had hoped to finish up writing on our chicken coop design with this post, but I ran out of time and markers…seriously – my gray marker ran out. So today I’m going to focus on the front elevation and next week I’ll wrap it up with the other 3 elevations.
Front Elevation of the Coop
When designing your coop you really need to think through ventilation for a number of reasons: respiratory health of the chickens; drying out the moisture and their manure keeps down the smells and the potential of the hens getting sick. I made ours super-ventilated by covering the entire front of our coop with hardware cloth. We may have gone overboard, but it’s better to err on the side of too much ventilation in a coop than too little…and because Atlanta has a fairly temperate climate, I think we’re good. That said, you do have to consider strong winds – particularly in the colder months. That’s why Britt and I crafted Roman shade-like curtains out of painter’s drop cloths for the front and the windows on the other 3 sides of the coop. It was quite inexpensive and fairly easy to do…particularly if you strategically use the hems already sewn in. These curtains will give our ladies a refuge from the cold winds – protecting the exposed areas of their bodies (combs, wattles, and feet).
Here are a few other things to note about the front elevation of our coop:
- Again, entire area is covered in hardware cloth. I could have used chicken wire on the top (bottom needs hardware cloth to keep out critters), but I had enough hardware cloth and I thought it looked better for the entire area to be consistent.
- The height of the walls are 6.5’…which is plenty high (for me at least) to be able to walk through the door…and there is plenty of height inside, since there is no ceiling (just the rafters and tin roof above).
- 24″ doors were constructed out of pressure-treated wood and painted the same color as the doors of our home.
- To clean things up a bit and to cover up where the pieces of hardware cloth met, I added 1″ trim on the outside of each 2×4 and painted it and the siding of the rest of the coop the same color gray as our house.
- We used gate latches as handles. If you do as well, make sure you make it so that you won’t get locked in when the doors close. To do that, I simply drilled a hole just above the latch and attached a long, thin chain that I threaded through the hole…allowing me to open the latch from inside. Don’t use string or twine…I found that out the hard way. String will wear out and break – leaving you stranded inside. Fortunately when it happened to me, one of my girls was within shouting distance.
- We were running out of hardware cloth when we were finishing the gable, so we simply filled in the middle space with a board and painted it gray. To make sense of this oddly proportioned space and to bring a little bit of character to the coop, I hung a set of antlers from a Mule Deer I shot several years ago with my dad in Wyoming.
So there’s the front elevation. We are really pleased with it…it’s done what we set out to do – make a more than livable space for our chickens (and bunny), while still being attractive. Now we may be a bit too particular, but I really think having an attractive coop in a nice setting has made raising chickens not only sustainable, but more enjoyable. So sure, you could build a coop that is purely functional, but if it looks like a hunk of junk, is that really something you want to see every day…sometimes several times? We thought not.
Next week I’ll wrap things up on our chicken coop design…but until then, please let me know if you have any other questions about our coop or raising chickens. I could perhaps work my answers into the next post.
Take care,
PS: Here are the links to and of Our Chicken Coop Design…and the link to .
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Chicken Coop Building Plans in Goodview, Virginia
A good place to start any search is the internet. Simply plugging in the phrase "chicken coops for sale in Goodview Virginia" 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 Goodview Virginia chicken coops. What to look for when buying a chicken coop in Goodview, Virginia With the huge rise in poultry keeping there has been an equally huge increase in the variety of fowl paraphernalia on sale. Fowl real estate is a situation in point. It's likewise a classic instance of the excellent old bandwagon being jumped on as various potential fowl housing experts market a range of accommodation claiming to be the ideal option to your chicken housing requirements. Usually the cost looks appealing, your house looks appealing, heck also the clean-cut family members standing there feeding the chickens look desirable. Surely they know a professional chicken house when they see one? There are several low-cost as well as nasty coops flooding the market. I know this as I've checked a variety of them in the area, and also seen a ewe run directly via one when the feed pail appeared. The result was just an expensive heap of firewood and also a small flock of bemused and now homeless bantams.
Chicken Coop Pinterest in Goodview, Virginia
Typically these mass produced versions are built of rapid grown hardwood - come the initial drop of rain they swell, leaving you either fortifying a doorway that will not shut, or tearing the door furnishings off in a vain effort to launch the squawking occupants. The very first warm day indicates the timber dries out and also cracks, the felt roofing system bubbles as well as boils, as well as come nightfall the chickens refuse to enter. This is not because of their disappointment at the decline of their as soon as eye-catching apartment however since the hovel is currently a place for, as well as probably crawling with, the fowl keeper's bane, red mite. Add on that it claimed on the blurb that it would certainly fit four huge hens when that equipping density was based upon the Circle Line at 5pm on a Friday, and also exactly what are you left with? A few hinges and some kindling. A decent coop for thee to four birds need to cost you approximately ₤ 300 though this could rely on whether you elect for a totally free standing house or one with a run affixed. Presuming you are varying your birds in a huge room and also the pop hole door is big enough for the breed you keep, after that the main demands of real estate boil down to 3 points which will specify the number of birds your home will hold; perches, nest boxes and ventilation. A lot of breeds of chicken will perch when they visit roost during the night, this perch needs to ideally be 5-8cm large with smoothed off sides so the foot sits pleasantly on it. The perch ought to be higher than the nest box entrance as chickens will certainly also normally seek the acme 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) resulting in soiled eggs the following day. They should not however be so high off the flooring of your home that leg injuries can occur when the bird comes down in the morning. Chickens need concerning 20cm of perch each (in little breeds this is clearly much less), plus if more than one perch is installed in your home they need to be greater than 30cm apart. They will hunker up with their neighbors but are not that keen on roosting with a beak in the bloomers of the bird ahead. Ideally your house needs to have a the very least one nest box for every 3 birds and also these need to be off the ground and also in the darkest area of your house. Your house should have sufficient air flow: without it after that condensation will certainly develop every evening, also in the chilliest of climate. Realize, ventilation works on the principle of warm and comfortable air leaving through a high space attracting cooler air in from a reduced space - it's not a collection of openings on opposite wall surfaces of your home and also at the very same level, this is just what's referred to as a draught. If you have a house with a run attached after that the factors above are still real, yet you ought to likewise take into consideration the run dimension. The EU maximum legal equipping thickness for a complimentary array bird is (as well as allow's encounter it, one of the motivations for keeping some hens at home is potentially improved or much better welfare) 2,500 birds per hectare, that's optimal one bird per 4m settled. Take a close consider a few of the deal residences - it could well be the house has the best perches, appropriate ventilation and adequate nest boxes for a reasonable 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 saying goes, "you get exactly what you spend for". You could believe you've got hold of a deal, but you and your group might rue the day you did. Purchase the best house and it will certainly last for a couple of years, otherwise longer given the right treatment. Eventually your chicken and your chicken maintaining experience will be considerably the better for it.chicken chicken
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