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Cheap Chicken Coops For Sale in Murray, NE

Chicken Coops for Sale in Murray, Nebraska

chicken coop for sale in 
  Murray NE

Building a Tiki Hut Chicken Coop A chicken coop is a chicken coop. Give your chickens a little style and make every day feel like a tropical vacation. Build your chickens a chicken hut. See the slideshow below for pictures of this project in the making. Framing the chicken coop Building of a chicken hut starts with a frame. Because a hut is an octagon, to get your angle you'll need to use the 22 ½ degree setting on your saw. Your frame will consist of nine vertical support posts and eight sections between them. Your frame will be attached at the bottom, at the top, and at the height at which you plan to put your nesting boxes. When you've got the pieces for your frame cut, you have, in a sense, a giant jigsaw puzzle. You merely need to start screwing the pieces together. When you've got the pieces screwed together, you'll have an octagon shaped frame with three bands of 2x4s banding around it like a barrel. Now you can begin to look at the sides. The lower half of each section, except where you intend to put your door, should be covered in plywood. If you want, at this point, you could use plumbers strap and strap your bands together for extra support. Nesting boxes for the chicken coop Nesting boxes are between 14 and 16 inches wide, tall and deep. How convenient. Basically, you're building a box with no front, and unless you want to go in and fight your chickens for the eggs later, you might want to hinge the outside half of the top of your box. This will allow you to reach in from the outside of the coop to remove the eggs. When the boxes are complete, you simply set one box in each section positioned on the middle band and attach a 2x2 across the top, securing it to the frame. Make sure that if you screw down from the top that you have no screws running all the way through leaving sharp points inside your nesting boxes. Building walls for a chicken hut For your walls, you covered the lower half with plywood, but for ventilation purposes, it's best to cover the top half with chicken wire or wire mesh. This can also be used to cover around the nesting boxes. It is easily cut into shape with a pair of tin snips and staples firmly in place with a pneumatic or electric staple gun. The additional ventilation that this will provide is especially important in Pasco County, FL since the summers here get very hot. The chickens will want to be inside in the shade during the heat of the day and they will need the extra ventilation during these hot and humid times. Flooring the chicken coop For the floor, simply run joists across, lying on edge against the frame, attaching them to the upright supports and screw them in from the outside for extra strength. When attaching plywood over the floor joists, remember to leave a hole in the center for your center post. After all, this is a hut and the roof revolves around a center post, which may be put through the floor or attached to the floor, depending on your preference. When the walls and wire are done, you should have one section open, this section can be used for a doorway. The door can be as elaborate as your imagination or as crude as a piece of plywood, a couple of hinges and a couple of door hasps. Once again according to your preference and how much work you want to do. Roof and roosts for the chicken coop As discussed in the previous section, the roof is based on a support beam. This can be as simple as a 2x4 standing straight up with 2x2 trusses cut on angles and attached to it. To as crude as a tree limb cut to the desired height and a couple of hose clamps and a few 90 degree brackets bent to the proper angle and slid into the hose clamp and then screwed into your 2x2 trusses. No matter which way you choose, after your roof is framed you will need to do two important things: protect it from predators and make it semi-water proof. This can be done easily with the chicken wire over the frame for protection and some 90 weight tar paper for the waterproofing. Then add some sort of canvas or material or even a tarp; whatever you choose to cover over and protect the tar paper. All three materials can be attached easily with staples on the trusses. Remember, start with the chicken wire, from the top down about 9 inches apart, then as you get to the second section, you'll start 3 inches down from the top. For the final section, you'll start 6 inches down from the top, so you don't staple in the same place twice. Then you'll run one final row of staples along the top edge where the trusses meet the support beam. Applying a bead of caulk here will also go a long way towards keeping water out by not allowing it to roll down the center post. At this point, you should have a complete chicken hut with only cosmetic things left, which include your choice of painting and waterproofing the outside, the canvas roof, or the inside, for that matter, if you choose, adding in roosts – remember when adding your roosts to add then in at different heights to allow for the pecking order that happens in all hen houses – and add some straw and you're ready for chickens. Want to know more? Click on the "subscribe" button at the top of this article to be notified when new articles are posted in this category.


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