Chicken Coops for Sale in Bald Knob, West Virginia
Chicken Coops for Sale in Bald Knob, West 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 Cheap in Bald Knob, West Virginia
A good place to start any search is the internet. Simply plugging in the phrase "chicken coops for sale in Bald Knob West 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 Bald Knob West Virginia chicken coops. What to look for when buying a chicken coop in Bald Knob, West Virginia With the significant rise in poultry keeping there has been a similarly large rise in the array of fowl paraphernalia on sale. Chicken housing is a proceedings in factor. It's likewise a classic example of the good old bandwagon being jumped on as different would-be fowl housing specialists market a variety of cottage declaring to be the optimal solution to your chicken real estate demands. Often the rate looks desirable, your diy-chicken-coop-planshome looks eye-catching, hell also the clean-cut family standing there feeding the chickens look desirable. Undoubtedly they understand a high quality chicken house when they see one? There are several cheap and awful coops swamping the market. I know this as I've examined a number of them in the field, and seen a ewe run straight via one when the feed bucket appeared. The outcome was only a costly stack of firewood as well as a little group of bemused as well as currently homeless bantams.
Baby Chickens For Sale in Bald Knob, West Virginia
Most of the time these standardized designs are built of quick grown timber - come the initial decline of rain they swell, leaving you either barricading a doorway that won't shut, or tearing the doorway furnishings off in a vain attempt to release the squawking inhabitants. The very first warm and comfortable day suggests the hardwood dries out and also fractures, the felt roofing bubbles as well as boils, and come nightfall the hens choose not to enter. This is not due to their disappointment at the decline of their as soon as eye-catching home however because the hovel is now a place for, as well as possibly abounding, the chicken keeper's bane, red mite. Add on that it stated on the blurb that it would suit 4 large hens when that equipping thickness was based upon the Circle Line at 5pm on a Friday, and also what are you entrusted? A couple of hinges and some kindling. A decent coop for thee to 4 birds should cost you around ₤ 300 though this could depend upon whether you choose for a free standing house or one with a run affixed. Thinking you are ranging your birds in a big room as well as the pop hole doorway is big enough for the breed you maintain, after that the primary demands of real estate boil down to 3 points which will define the variety of birds the house will hold; perches, nest boxes as well as ventilation. The majority of types of chicken will certainly perch when they visit roost in the evening, this perch needs to ideally be 5-8cm wide 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 naturally try to find the highest point to perch. A perch less than that will have the birds roosting in the nest box over night (which is incidentally when they produce the most poo) bring about dirtied eggs the following day. They shouldn't nonetheless be so high off the floor of your home that leg injuries could take place when the bird comes down in the morning. Chickens need concerning 20cm of perch each (in little types this is clearly much less), plus if greater than one perch is set up in the house they must be greater than 30cm apart. They will certainly hunker up with their neighbors but are not that keen on roosting with a beak in the bloomers of the bird in front. Ideally your house should have a least one nest box for every single three birds as well as these must be off the ground and 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. Understand, air flow works with the concept of warm air leaving through a high void drawing cooler air in from a lower gap - it's not a set of openings on other wall surfaces of the house and at the exact same degree, this is just what's referred to as a draught. If you have a house with a run attached after that the points above are still real, but you should additionally take into consideration the run dimension. The EU maximum lawful equipping thickness for a cost-free range bird is (and also allow's face it, one of the motivations for keeping some chickens in your home is possibly boosted or far better well-being) 2,500 birds per hectare, that's optimal one bird per 4m made even. Take a close consider several of the bargain houses - it could well be your home has the appropriate perches, proper air flow and also ample nest boxes for a practical number of birds, however will each of the chickens have anything more than an A4 sized item of ground to spend the day on? Therefore as the claiming goes, "you obtain exactly what you pay for". You might think you've grabbed a bargain, yet you and also your group might rue the day you did. Acquisition the appropriate house as well as it will last for a couple of decades, if not longer given the right treatment. Eventually your chicken as well as your fowl keeping experience will certainly be a lot the better for it.plans chick
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