The Chicken Coop

-

             

~Welcome To Our Coop~

The coop.... I feel like the coop is the heart of the homestead. Farm fresh eggs are one of our treasures. It's the place we watch chicks grow and become big beautiful hens and roosters. The chickens provide kind of a Livelihood for us. There are so many uses for eggs here and the great health benefits and protein content makes for a wonderful thing to have access to here on the Homestead. 

                Making a nice cozy place for our hens to lay eggs, have predator protection and weather protection is important. 


A coop could be made of really anything that can withstand the weather and keep predators out. You could use a shed, a place in your barn, make a portable chicken coop, the ideas are really endless. The building you see here was made for our goats, but we turned it into a chicken coop and it works wonderfully! It's big enough to walk into, which makes cleaning easy. It keeps predators out and is great protection for the weather. I put a chicken wire door on for better air flow. 




This is the inside. I covered the floor with pine shavings, which will be easy to clean out. It's important to have something for chickens to roost on. I put the roost in the corner to allow more walking space.

The nest boxes I am using are made out of storage containers. These are awesome! I turned them upside down and screwed them onto a couple 2x6's. Just cut out an opening and your good to go. They are easy to clean out and I filled them with shavings. 





They have a bucket of water in the corner.  I usually just use a bucket and it works pretty well. You may rather use a chicken waterer though.

Every morning when I let the chickens out to free range I throw them some grain on the ground. But I also have a bowl inside the coop to put grain in. Again you can also use a chicken feeder, however I find the bowl is easier to fill and takes less time. Chicken feeders are great though, if you are going to give your chickens unlimited feed.



*That's our coop! *










Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

~Goat Milk For Good Health

-
Image
  Got Milk? It may sound kinda odd, I mean drinking milk from a goat! I know it's not your average 2% cows milk, but I think you will find the nutritional benefits are definitely worth giving goat milk a try! And the great thing is, you can have your very own milk goat, right on your own homestead!  Nutritional Benefits: Goat milk has the ability to:  aid in weight loss  reduce inflammation  optimize digestion  improve bioavailability of nutrients  strengthen bones  boost heart health  strengthen immunity  increase metabolism  prevent toxins from accumulating in the body and  benefit overall health. Wow sounds pretty good right? Did you know that approximatley 65 % of the United States propulation drink goat milk? What about the Lactose? Lactose is in all animal derived milk. It is "natural milk sugar". However goat's milk is slightly lower in the amount of lactose it contains, compared to cow's milk. It's about 12% less pe
Read more

Why I Decided To Keep My Boar Saanen cross doe?

-
Image
I absolutely love my Saanen Dairy Goat Firefly! Not only is she beautiful with her white coat, floppy ears and beard, but shes so sweet and a great milker! This year she gave us a beautiful little doe kid!  And the question always comes up! To keep the kid or sell the kid?  Tilly is half Saanen and half Boar. She has her moms beautiful white coat and her dads adorable "baby doll" type face and ears. After some thought, I have decided to go down the road of dairy/meat goat cross and keep Tilly as our next milk goat!  You may be wondering if a Dairy Boar cross is a good milk goat! If that's you keep reading! What is a Boar Goat? Boar Goats are a Meat Production breed. They were developed in South Africa in the early 1900's. Boar goats were bred for meat, rather than milk. They are hardy animals, are generally docile and are fast growing!  What's a Saanen? The Saanen is a Swiss Breed. They are a Dairy goat and are heavy milk producers. In
Read more

Feeding Hair Sheep

-
Image
~Feeding Hair Sheep 101~ Hair sheep are known to be very hardy and parasite resistant. They can generally live on pasture alone (as long as you manage them properly). In this post I am going to go over exactly how we take care of our hair sheep and what we feed them. Disclaimer: Hair Sheep are one of the easiest animals we have ever set out to raise! Much easier than goats, cows, etc! Feeding them is pretty straight forward, but there are a few things to know, so your operation will go smoothly. #1 Rotating Pasture If you have good pasture and can rotate your sheep onto fresh grass often enough, your sheep should be able to completely thrive off grass. Rotating Pasture also keeps parasites at bay, keeping your sheep nice and healthy. Another thing rotating pasture can do for you is help your profit margin! With less money spent on feed, your income will flourish more. When you see that the grass is getting yellowed or trampled down, move them to fresh grass and they will h
Read more