Chicken Coops for Sale in Edmond, West Virginia
Chicken Coops for Sale in Edmond, West Virginia
Chicken Coops — The Top 5 Requirements
Chicken Coops – What You Need
Happy, healthy chickens need proper housing, but knowing what you need may seem daunting. Don’t let choosing the house for your chickens intimidate you. Meeting the needs of your flock, whether building your own chicken castle or buying ready-made, is easy and should provide for four basic needs.
- Protection from the elements
- Protection from predators
- Place for laying eggs
- A roost at night
The Components of a Chicken Coop
As I wrote in my , chickens have an innate homing instinct, keeping your flock close to home. Our feathered kids are such home bodies that even free ranging, every night before sundown all our chickens are perched in the coop. I always recommend a protected place for your flock to come home and roost for the night, even when free ranging.
You don’t need a poultry castle for your chickens to come home to. come in many shapes, sizes, and designs, from fancy to plain. Believe it or not, your chickens won’t care what the coop looks like as long as it provides the above four basic needs.
With that said, before deciding what type of coop you are going to buy or build, you must determine what coop features are needed that most closely conform to a chicken’s natural behavior. Hopefully I can help you understand what you need in the design of your chicken coop.
The Basics
Let’s start with the basics. All chicken coops need 3 things; a roof, 4 walls, and a doorway for entering and leaving. The design and the materials used for the chicken coop is up to you. As long as it is mostly draft free (you still need healthy ventilation), your choices are endless.
Your coop space is based on the number of chickens you plan to house. A good rule of thumb is 4 square feet of floor space per large chicken and 3 square feet for the smaller bantam breeds. Also consider the ease of cleaning when choosing your coop design; you’ll be glad you did.
Security
Making a chicken coop predator free is the most important part of building a home for your flock. Your coop must be secure from the top, bottom, and all sides. When looking at any pre-made coop or chicken coop building plans, consider all angles for security. Not only should you consider the security of the coop itself, but the security of the yard and run as well.
When choosing the wire for your run and coop, we advise steering clear of standard chicken wire. While it works well for keeping your chickens contained it’s not entirely predator proof. Because the holes in standard chicken wire are large, coyotes, raccoons, and foxes can still reach through the mesh, causing harm to your chickens. Always use a small hole wire like hardware cloth with ½ inch openings.
Another consideration when building the chicken yard or run, is airborne predators like hawks. You must include covering the top of the run as well. Our chicken runs use the same size mesh fencing on the top as the sides.
Finally, there are predators from below, such as rats and mice. These critters are attracted to the feed and droppings and like to burrow under your coop. Protect your chickens by using a coop with a floor built into it or burying small mesh fencing below the coop and extending it about 12 inches out on all sides.
The Outside Run
All coops need a connecting chicken run or pen. Chickens need access to the outside to do all those “chicken things”, like dirt baths, catching bugs, scratching dirt, or just relaxing in the sunshine or shade.
Ideally, your chicken run should have 10 square feet of ground space per full size chicken. The smaller bantam breeds require less, about 7 square feet per chicken. If your chickens free range the majority of the day, you can get by with less space.
Laying Boxes
If you want eggs, you need laying boxes. These can be as fancy or as plain as you like, just as long as they are about 12” x 12” and raised off the ground a few inches. You need one box for every 4 laying hens. Boxes should comfortably fit the chicken and have low enough sides for the hens to step over. Be sure to keep your boxes lined with clean straw or other bedding.
Roosting Perches
All birds roost, including chickens. Your coop needs a roosting bar or something off the ground on which your chickens can perch. We strongly suggest having perches both inside the coop and outside in the run area.
When figuring roosting pole size, provide 5-10” of space per chicken and 10” of space between each pole if you are using more than one. Multiple poles also need grading like ladders so the farthest pole is several inches higher than the next.
There are many shapes, sizes, and styles of chicken coops to choose from. Making the right choice for your needs is important, and all coops need to contain all necessary elements.
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Chicken Coop Setup in Edmond, West Virginia
A good place to start any search is the internet. Simply plugging in the phrase "chicken coops for sale in Edmond 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 Edmond West Virginia chicken coops. What to look for when buying a chicken coop in Edmond, West Virginia With the significant increase in poultry keeping there has actually been a just as huge rise in the variety of fowl stuff for sale. Poultry housing is a proceedings in point. It's likewise a classic instance of the great old bandwagon being jumped on as different would-be poultry housing specialists market a range of lodging claiming to be the optimal option to your chicken real estate needs. Often the rate looks attractive, the house looks eye-catching, hell even the clean-cut family members standing there feeding the chickens look eye-catching. Definitely they understand a top quality chicken house when they see one? There are several inexpensive and also awful coops swamping the market. I recognize this as I've examined a number of them in the area, as well as seen a ewe run straight with one when the feed container showed up. The outcome was just an expensive pile of firewood and also a tiny group of bemused as well as now homeless bantams.
Chicken Coop From Pallets in Edmond, West Virginia
Generally these standardized models are created of quick grown up timber - come the initial decline of rain they swell, leaving you either blockading a door that will not shut, or ripping the door furniture off in a vain attempt to release the squawking inhabitants. The initial cozy day suggests the timber dries as well as cracks, the felt roof bubbles as well as boils, and also come nightfall the chickens refuse to go in. This is not as a result of their dissatisfaction at the decrease of their as soon as eye-catching home yet because the hovel is now a haven for, and probably crawling with, the chicken caretaker's bane, red mite. Add the fact that it stated on the blurb that it would fit four huge chickens when that stocking density was based on the Circle Line at 5pm on a Friday, and also exactly what are you left with? A couple of hinges and also some kindling. A decent coop for thee to 4 birds need to cost you approximately ₤ 300 though this can depend upon whether you choose for a cost-free standing house or one with a run connected. Assuming you are ranging your birds in a big area and also the pop hole doorway allows enough for the type you keep, after that the major requirements of real estate boil down to 3 factors which will specify the variety of birds your home will hold; perches, nest boxes and also ventilation. Most types of chicken will perch when they visit roost in the evening, this perch ought to ideally be 5-8cm wide with smoothed off edges so the foot sits easily on it. The perch needs to be more than the nest box entry as chickens will certainly additionally normally seek the acme to perch. A perch lower than that will certainly have the birds roosting in the nest box overnight (which is incidentally when they create the most poo) resulting in stained eggs the following day. They should not however be so high off the floor of your house that leg injuries might take place when the bird gets down in the early morning. Chickens require concerning 20cm of perch each (in small types this is undoubtedly less), plus if more than one perch is set up in the house they should be greater than 30cm apart. They will certainly hunker up with their next-door neighbors but are not that crazy about roosting with a beak in the bloomers of the bird in front. Ideally your house should have a the very least one nest box for every single three birds and also these must be off the ground and also in the darkest area of the house. The house needs to have ample air flow: without it then condensation will develop every evening, even in the coldest of climate. Be aware, air flow deals with the principle of cozy air leaving via a high void drawing cooler air in from a lower space - it's not a collection of openings on other wall surfaces of the house and at the same level, this is just what's called a draft. If you have a house with a run attached then the points above are still true, yet you need to also take into consideration the run dimension. The EU optimum lawful stocking thickness for a cost-free range bird is (and let's face it, one of the inspirations for keeping some hens in your home is perhaps improved or much better welfare) 2,500 birds per hectare, that's maximum one bird each 4m settled. Take a close look at several of the deal residences - it could well be the house has the right perches, proper ventilation and also adequate nest boxes for a reasonable variety of birds, but 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 just what you spend for". You may think you've grabbed a bargain, but you as well as your group might rue the day you did. Acquisition the ideal house and it will last for a couple of years, otherwise longer offered the appropriate treatment. In the long run your poultry and also your poultry keeping experience will be much the better for it.diy coop
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