Chicken Real Estate: Unique Chicken Coops for City Chickens

As promised in our on-going series of urban agriculture articles, we continue today with a discussion of your urban chicken?s real estate. We?ll cover chicken nesting boxes, building a chicken coop, and a wide variety of unique chicken coops to consider. Oh, and a little chicken sex education regarding how often chickens lay eggs.

A Little Sex Ed: How Often do Chickens Lay Eggs?

Picture by isthmushandyman.com

Before we get started, I want to address two common questions that I get all the time about raising chickens for eggs.

1. Do you need a rooster to get eggs?

2. How often do chickens lay eggs?

The answer to the first question is NO. Think back to your junior high school sex education class and basic biology, and it will quickly make sense that hens can produce an egg regardless of the presence or absence of a rooster. A rooster is only important for fertilization ? that is if you want to produce more chickens ? not for egg laying.

Regarding the second question, chickens ovulate approximately every 25 hours, which means that most chickens will lay one egg a day. However, how often a chicken lays an egg is also dependent on daylight hours. Chickens don?t lay eggs at night, and, in the winter when daylight hours are shorter, chickens will not lay eggs as often, and will skip a day here and there.

Chickens also do not lay eggs when they are molting, which happens once a year when they lose some of their old feathers and grow new ones. When all is said and done, the typical chicken will lay approximately 180 to 220 eggs per year.

Chicken Nesting Boxes

So, what are chicken nesting boxes and why are they important? Well, just as women like to be left alone with our chocolate every 28 days or so, hens need a nice, quiet, private space, also known as a chicken nesting box, in which to lay her egg every day. Every chicken coop needs enough nesting boxes to accommodate the daily egg-laying of your chickens. You should build one nesting box for every two to four hens.

Chicken nesting boxes should be built approximately 2 feet up off of the ground, and, for standard breeds, the chicken nesting boxes should be 12 inches deep by 12 inches wide by 12 inches tall. There should be a lip at least 2 inches tall on the front edge to keep the eggs and bedding material from falling out of the nesting box. Forums about raising chickens will have examples of different chicken nesting boxes.

Building a Unique, Adorable Chicken Coop

Even before you purchase your baby chicks, you should have a chicken coop ready for them to move into once they have their feathers.

Although it?s easy to find chicken coops for sale, it?s just as easy to find building plans for chicken coops for free on the Internet. Building a chicken coop is typically far less expensive than buying one, and you can get creative and build a unique, adorable chicken coop that fits your home and garden style.

Various cities around the country offer chicken coop tours where, before building a chicken coop, you can visit other unique chicken coops around the city that might spark ideas. Each year, Seattle Tilth organizes a tour of cute chicken coops in neighborhoods around the city.

There are a few important considerations when building a chicken coop. First, check your city?s urban agriculture ordinances. There may be height restrictions or your chicken coop may need to be a minimum distance from property lines.

When building a chicken coop, you also need to have enough space for the number of chickens you are raising. In the hen house, the small, enclosed area where the chickens will sleep at night, each chicken should have at least 2 square feet of space. In the run, the outdoor space the hens will occupy, they should have at least 4 square feet each.

I have three chickens, and I built a hen house that measures 4 feet long by 2 feet wide and 4 feet tall. It is set 2 feet off of the ground and is built as part of the larger run. The run measures 4 feet wide by 8 feet long and 8 feet tall.

The nesting boxes are inside the hen house on the short wall. Access to the nesting boxes is a very important consideration when building a chicken coop. You will want an access door to the chicken nesting boxes on the outside of the chicken coop so you don?t have to go inside the coop each day to gather eggs.

Just like owning your own real estate, building your own chicken coop can be a lot of fun. Let your creativity run wild. Paint it a fun color, decorate it with salvaged shutters and windows, and give your ?girls? an adorable chicken coop that is uniquely theirs.

Have you seen some unique chicken coop ideas? Do you have any questions on raising chickens in the city or any other urban agriculture topic? Let us know.

Tagged as: agriculture, chicken, chickens, coop, eggs, farming, garden, gardening, homestead, landscaping, nesting, urban

Source: http://www.realestate.com/advice/chicken-real-estate-unique-chicken-coops-for-city-chickens-64513

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Source: http://blog.ilove3c.com/2012/08/24/utilize-these-suggestions-when-marketing-real-estate-4/

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