Chicken Coops for Sale in River Falls, Wisconsin
Chicken Coops for Sale in River Falls, Wisconsin
Build Your Own Chicken Coop – A story of chickens
So WAY back in March…Josh and I had a talk with the boys and we decided as a family that we would get some chickens. We were all pretty excited about this new adventure and couldn’t wait to get started! At the beginning of April we headed over to to figure out what we would need and how many chickens we wanted. They had a very helpful employee who told us everything we would need to know about taking care of our chickens. Also, lucky for us we had Housewife Gena available to answer any questions we might have!
The boys were excited to help pick out the chickens and were even more excited when the IFA staff told us the chicks needed to be held lots and lots so they would be used to the kids. 🙂� After about an hour there we came home with…
Six adorable chicks! Because we are a family of five we decided to get two chickens that are said to lay daily and four chickens that lay 3-4 times a week. We figured that would be plenty of eggs for us!
A couple weeks later, IFA did an Easter Egg Hunt. Now being a farm supply store, they don’t give away just candy in their eggs, they also give away…you guessed it CHICKENS! (And bunnies and ducks and turkeys) Housewife Jenn’s kids ended up with four leghorn chicks! Another family in our ward decided they didn’t need any extra chickens and gave Jenn’s family another two chicks! Since we were already building a coop for our chicks, we offered to let Jenn’s family’s chicks live with ours.
So here are the little chicks! Happy under their heat lamp and eating away! 🙂�
While our chicks were perfectly happy in the garage, in their tote…it quickly got too small for 12 chicks. As soon as they were ready, we transferred them to the backyard to a makeshift coop. I did not take a picture of the makeshift coop because…well it was pretty sad. It served it’s purpose and the chickens loved it but it was not anything you’d want to show off! With that in mind, Josh began the process of building a coop for our chickens. We saw a coop at IFA that we thought looked great! However, it was $600.00. As much as we liked our chickens…we didn’t $600.00 like them!
So Josh took a few measurements and we sketched out what we wanted for our chickens, using the IFA coop as inspiration. We took a trip to Lowe’s to price out our materials. We were lucky enough that we had left over wood, Jenn’s family had left over wood and a family a few houses down from us reroofed their house and donated their left over roofing supplies to us! It was our goal to use as many materials as we already had and keep the cost as low as possible!
Let me say now…Josh and I have never “built” anything. Really. This was quite an adventure for us (mostly Josh since he did almost all of the work) and I’m so happy with how it all turned out!
He started with the base for the coop itself. We wanted to make sure that there was enough clearance for the chickens to use under the coop as part of the chicken run.
He used four 3″ screws in each post to make sure it was nice and sturdy.
Wall framing almost done!
Look what happens when you start building a coop…your chickens start laying eggs! 🙂� (So far Jenn’s chickens are the only ones laying. Lucky for us, our chickens are DUAL chickens so if they don’t get to laying…they going to get to frying!)
The framing completed from two angles.
Up go the walls!
Putting in the hinged door for collecting eggs.
Getting the eggs out will be a breeze! 🙂�
A few angles of the walls all up and the plywood for the roof up. As you can see, our coop has skylights…that’s how we roll.
First coat of paint and the tar paper on the roof. You may wonder why we chose this color for the coop. Well to be completely honest, we picked colors we wanted to paint our house and figured the coop would be the perfect guinea pig to see if we like the colors! 🙂� The coop is Valspar’s Royal Gray. (I know, it looks blue to me too!)
For the door we chose Valspar’s Kettle Black. It has blue undertones so it goes really well with the Royal Gray.
The roof complete with the windows in. I’ve seen lots of super cute coops with real glass windows. It was less expensive ($1.29 a pane) to just use plexiglass. And it worked perfectly!
The coop with the final coat of paint, windows/hardware on and trim put up.
The door on the coop. We chose to put a large door on the side to make it easier to clean out for us. And I have to say that it makes it look way cuter! 🙂�
The Roosting bar inside the coop.
Trim all painted and mesh put around the bottom of the coop.
The nesting boxes. The only thing I didn’t get a picture of was the peel and stick tiles that we put on the bottom of the coop. They were only $0.02 a tile! I think we ended up using about 14 tiles.
The finished product with the happy chickens inside!
Another angle. After the coop itself was completed. Josh used 2 x 2’s and 2 x 3’s to build the frame for the yard and another, outdoor roosting bar. We also added in the ramp for the chickens to get into the coop. I’m super proud of Josh for all of his hard work and I’m really excited for how amazing it turned out!! Our total cost for the entire coop…every last nail, hinge, can of paint, everything was about $290.00. And the best part is the chicken coop and run are significantly bigger than the one at IFA. 🙂� So HUGE round of applause for Josh and the coop!
UPDATE: Hello dear readers!!! This has been a long time coming, but this post is going to get a HUGE revamp! With having babies and life getting in the way, I’ve neglected this post and getting out the information that I should. I am going to be working on updating this post with as much information on the building and materials as I can. We didn’t keep super great track of all the materials we used, but I will do the best I can to give you as much info as possible! Thank you all again for loving this project!
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Chicken Coop Tips in River Falls, Wisconsin
A good place to start any search is the internet. Simply plugging in the phrase "chicken coops for sale in River Falls Wisconsin" 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 River Falls Wisconsin chicken coops. What to look for when buying a chicken coop in River Falls, Wisconsin With the huge increase in chicken keeping there has been a just as large rise in the array of fowl materiel on sale. Chicken housing is a situation in point. It's additionally a classic instance of the good old bandwagon being got on as various prospective fowl real estate professionals peddle a selection of accommodation asserting to be the optimal solution to your chicken housing needs. Commonly the price looks attractive, your house looks attractive, hell also the clean-cut family standing there feeding the chickens look attractive. Certainly they understand a high quality chicken house when they see one? There are lots of inexpensive and horrible cages swamping the market. I know this as I've examined a number of them in the area, as well as seen a ewe run directly with one when the feed container showed up. The result was only an expensive stack of firewood as well as a little group of bemused as well as currently homeless bantams.
Chicken Coop Blueprints in River Falls, Wisconsin
Generally these standardized models are constructed of fast grown up wood - come the initial drop of rainfall they swell, leaving you either blockading a doorway that will not close, or tearing the doorway furniture off in a vain attempt to launch the squawking citizens. The initial warm and comfortable day implies the lumber dries and also fractures, the really felt roof covering bubbles and boils, and also come nightfall the hens choose not to enter. This is not as a result of their disappointment at the decline of their as soon as appealing commercial property however due to the fact that the hovel is now a place for, as well as probably abounding, the poultry keeper's nemesis, red mite. Add on that it said on the blurb that it would match four huge hens when that stocking density was based on the Circle Line at 5pm on a Friday, as well as exactly what are you entrusted? A couple of hinges and also some kindling. A suitable coop for thee to four birds ought to cost you approximately ₤ 300 though this can depend upon whether you elect for a totally free standing house or one with a run connected. Assuming you are ranging your birds in a big room and the pop opening doorway is big enough for the type you maintain, then the main requirements of real estate boil down to three factors which will specify the number of birds your home will hold; perches, nest boxes and also air flow. Most types of chicken will perch when they visit roost at night, this perch needs to ideally be 5-8cm broad with smoothed off edges so the foot rests easily on it. The perch needs to be above the nest box entrance as chickens will certainly likewise naturally search for the highest point to perch. A perch lower than that will have the birds roosting in the nest box overnight (which is by the way when they generate one of the most poo) bring about soiled eggs the following day. They shouldn't however be so high off the floor of the house that leg injuries might take place when the bird gets down in the morning. Chickens require concerning 20cm of perch each (in tiny types this is clearly much less), plus if more than one perch is installed in the house they must be more than 30cm apart. They will certainly hunker up with their next-door neighbors however are not that keen on roosting with a beak in the bloomers of the bird ahead. Preferably your house should have a the very least one nest box for every single 3 birds and these should be off the ground and also in the darkest area of your house. Your home needs to have adequate air flow: without it after that condensation will certainly accumulate every night, even in the coldest of weather condition. Be aware, air flow deals with the principle of warm and comfortable air leaving via a high void drawing cooler air in from a lower gap - it's not a set of holes on contrary walls of your house and at the exact same degree, this is what's called a draft. If you have a house with a run connected after that the factors above are still true, however you should also take into consideration the run dimension. The EU maximum legal stocking density for a complimentary range bird is (and also let's face it, among the inspirations for keeping some hens at home is potentially boosted or better well-being) 2,500 birds each hectare, that's optimal one bird per 4m squared. Take a close check out several of the bargain residences - it could well be your home has the best perches, correct ventilation and ample nest boxes for a practical number 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 stating goes, "you get exactly what you pay for". You may assume you've got a deal, however you and your flock could possibly rue the day you did. Purchase the appropriate house and it will certainly last for a couple of years, if not longer given the appropriate therapy. In the long run your chicken and your chicken maintaining encounter will be a lot the better for it.coop diy
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