NDR - Chicken coops?

J

JimG

Well-known member
Who is raising chickens? I'm looking for coop ideas, so if you can post pics that would be great.

Jim
 
Who is raising chickens? I'm looking for coop ideas, so if you can post pics that would be great.

Jim
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Interesting. My wife has been hitting me up to build her a coop. I jokingly asked her if she was turning into a prepper....I got the look! Apparently she just wants eggs....:-\ I've been putting it off because I don't know a thing about raising chickens.
 
Man I love duckboats.......... Where else are ya gonna get important questions like this? I've been thinkin' about the chickens & rabbits my grandparents raised in town, in the 50's & 60's.
Plus the huge garden and fruit trees. My dad also built my Grandma a brick oven, for fresh bread and pizza. She would wake me up at 5:30 am to help her out. We ate GOOD..........
My Grandfather would make 10-12 barrels of good dry red wine. To me, those were - The Days! Lotta work, but all very well worth it, with lots of memories ta boot.

Good luck with the coop, and Please post some photo's.
 
I'm sure you know this, but chickens smell bad, especially if you have a decent number - put coop a bit of a ways from the house and down wind. Everything likes to eat chickens too.
 
theres nothing funnier than going through a drive through with a load of two year old chicken poop.

ill have my gf take some pics and send them to me so i can put them up
 
I'm sure you know this, but chickens smell bad, especially if you have a decent number - put coop a bit of a ways from the house and down wind. Everything likes to eat chickens too.
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LOL....the smell thing I get. After living in Arkansas...(home to Tyson Chicken, George's, Simmons just to name a few) Man, you don't want to be in the wrong direction on a hot August day! I knew a guy that had a buisness cleaning the growers houses. He wore a hazemat outfit with full oxygen setup. Can you imagine running a bobcat for 10 hours a day doing that....Nasty!
 
My sister has a few chickens. You will find that you end up with more eggs then you think once they get going. They had 8 (yeah 'had', other things do try to eat chickens) and could supply most of the family with fresh eggs.

They picked up a small garden shed and modified it with a small door and put a covered pen off to of the side. The coop itself doesn't have to be very big depending on how many you want. They like to roam the lawn and if you chase them back will soon learn how far they are allowed to go. Fence in your garden if you have one.

Tim
 
I raised laying hens back in high school. It was normal to get 8-10 eggs/day out of 8 hens. At least one double yolk egg per week too. Feed them well and the eggs wont fit in a jumbo carton.

We are allowed to have up to 3 hens in our neighborhood (its actually in the City codes). So we are thinking about it too.
Google small chicken coops and you will find some ideas. Also, farm supply stores, even some Ace Hardware stores, have rabbit hutches that might work.
In regards to smell, if you are in a neighborhood, like we are, you will have to clean the coop every week, no taking a break. Compost the results or put it in the trash can.
 
I'm sure you know this, but chickens smell bad, especially if you have a decent number - put coop a bit of a ways from the house and down wind.
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Sounds like the perfect location to bury a gun vault. Ain't nobody going to look there. :>) :>)
 
worst thing about chickens is dropping your gum. it takes me forever to find it.
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LMAO...I read that and laughed out loud. 6 heads popped up in cubie land here. Thanks, made my day!
 
I've had chickens for about 4 years now, 3 hens is about perfect for our family of 4. If you have room to let them roam they they won't smell, and they will supplement their diet with foraging. I just built them a simple coop that's up off the ground about a foot and has a nesting box with a door attatched. In the winter we fill their coop with shavings and give them a heat lamp. They are really useful if you have a small farm-eggs, the poop goes into the compost pile, and when they stop laying they go into the stew pot. We also raised 20 meat chickens last year, when we butchered them they averaged 7 pounds each-that's a lot of meat! Our freezer looks like it has a bunch of bowling balls stacked in it. Do you know what breed you're looking for? We've been happiest with barred rocks, they are very cold-hardy and are great layers.
 
Here is one that my father made. He has 8 chickens, enough eggs to keep him and the neighbors stocked.

There was an egg farm near my college, and they had a sign out front that read, "Durisko Eggs, 27,534 happy employees" I got a kick out of that sign everytime I drove by.

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A friend and I made this chicken coop a few years back. If I were to do it again I would change the design a bit, but it was a decent first attempt. Notice the fancy copper flashing on the roof. It was a retirement present for my father. Figured the transition from working his whole life as a pipefitter and rarely having a day off to doing nothing would be too difficult for him:).

My favorite breed is the araucanas. They are the ones who lay the blueish/green eggs

http://www.backyardchickens.com/products/araucana

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Durisko Eggs, I went past that place plenty of times on my way trout fishin', or to Volant, or New Wilmington. Folks in western PA ate lots of those eggs for sure.
 
I'll second a chicken tractor at least for spring/summer and fall. Poop doesn't build up, they get fresh forage everyday, etc.

Tom
 
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