Love finding creative chicken coops, here’s a definite must-see. It’s painted so pretty and the detail is certainly one of a kind.
Chicken Coop with Personality
Category: Chicken Coops Pics & Plans
New Custom Brooder
Ready for my fall chicks with this totally customized brooder! Hubby spent countless weekends designing and building this beautiful addition to my brooder shed. The interior can be divided into two sections, both are designed for radiant heating as well as overhead low wattage supplemental heat lamps. The plexiglass front allows the chicks to actually see the world before they’re moved into the grow pen.
Special Features
Brooder has six conveniently placed power outlets and cord stays.
Plenty of storage below for all those bulky supplies.
Digital wireless temperature read-out from brooder to our home.
Floor of brooder is easy to clean linoleum tiles.
Top lifts for easy access on both sections and both are self-soft closing.
Brooder box is high so it’s easy on the back for cleaning.
Chicken Coops: Hardware Cloth or Chicken Wire?
Building a coop can be fun using scrap materials, brainstorming ways to be creative, and saving money. But all too often where you scrimped ends up costing you more later. One decision you might make, for example, is to choose chicken wire for your flock’s enclosure. It’s cheap and easy to handle, but in the long run, you’ll find it wasn’t worth saving those pennies.
First of all, chicken wire is NOT predator-proof. Countless animals can chew right through the stuff. Secondly, if you’re penny-wise, you certainly aren’t going to fancy wasting expensive chicken feed.
Wild birds are the biggest culprit in feed waste. One little sparrow might not eat much, but that tiny sparrow will soon bring hundreds of friends who will devour 3 pounds or more in just one afternoon. These little guys can fit through the holes in chicken wire, not only costing you money, but they’ll poop everywhere. I think we can both agree, we don’t need any more cleaning added to the chore list.
I’ve said this before, but it’s just plain smarter to build everything right the first time. Use hardware cloth on chicken coops, and enclosures. It’s stronger, and an extra perk is its tidy appearance. The ends can be finished nicely, it doesn’t bend making your coop look like a train wreck as time goes by.
You’ll find hardware cloth at Home Depot or similar building supply stores. Check your local feed stores too, sometimes they’ll sell by the foot so you don’t have to buy more than you need.
TBN Ranch Chicken Keeping Resources 