In my last post I was talking about the fact that I use to sell to a commercial egg producing farm who processed about 750,000 eggs per day. That takes a lot of chicken coops to hold that many hens.
And to answer the question, they had seven chicken houses full at all times and three more that were in a cleaning rotation. That’s an awfull lot of chickens and eggs.
Of course you can’t build chicken coops of that magnitude in your backyard but you can have one that will provide you and your family with fresh organic eggs each and every day.
There are lots of chicken coop plans to choose from and this ebook has the best. Check it out at Building A Chicken Coop.
Get Your Chicken Coop Plans and Build A Chicken Coop
Several years back I was working outside sales calling on the North East Texas area and one of my accounts was an egg producer. They raised chickens and sold the eggs for consumer consumption.
As I was watching the eggs being packaged I got to counting the number of cartons of eggs coming down the line. So I asked the question. How many eggs do you package in a day. The answer just about floored me. They processed approximately 750,000 in one day! My first though was, “that’s alot of chickens” and how many chicken coops does it take to house them?
You see a chicken will lay an egg about every 23 hours that’s one a day. That’s alot of chickens and they of course had commercial chicken coops, or chicken houses as they call them.
Now if you are planning on building a chicken coop you don’t have to go to this extreme but you do need to be sure that your’s is the best bckyard chicken coop it can be.
There is alot more that goes into the construction of a good chicken coop than the average person may think. You have to consider location, position, ventilation, egg harvesting and of course, ease of cleaning.
Armed with a good set of chicken coop plans you should have no problem and your backyard chickens should be happy and produce all the eggs you want.
Backyard Chicken Talk
Urban Chickens or Not?
When most people think of chickens they visualize a farm with the birds roaming around chasing bugs and laying eggs. Maybe a bit of cackling but all in all, just a bunch of yardbirds.
But what about urban chickens? Would you want to live in one of Texas’s most urban cites like Plano, to find out your neighbor has a bunch of hens in the backyard? My opinion is why not? As long as the chicken coop is kept clean and the birds are good and healthy, there shouldn’t be any issues.
Raising backyard chickens for the organic eggs seems to me they would fit right in with all the other health food awareness folks. Chickens pose no more of an issue than a crazy barking dog so let the citizens have their chickens.
Any of you who are raising backyard chickens, whether in Plano, Texas or anyother city in America be sure you have the best chicken coop you can to protect your yardbirds.
Get the full coop, uh I mean, scoop from the Dallas Morning News.
I was in perfect slumber when I was startled awake by that crazy rooster, crowing at 4:00 am in the morning. I thought to myself, “has that rooster lost his mind”? I mean the sun wasn’t even close to coming up, it was pitch dark outside.
So after a few minutes, he shut up and I fell back asleep. That is until the sun did come up and he started again. Crowing like there was no tomorrow. I went on about my day.
Next morning, yes at about 4:00 am, same rooster crowing again. What is it with this stupid chicken I thought. This went on for several days, or should I say way too early mornings, untill I finally figured it out.
A few days after all the crowing coming from the chicken coop, I was talking to my neighbor one afternoon. The conversation turned to work. I mentioned I had not seen him in a few days and asked if all was ok.
He assured me everything was fine but said every morning for the past few days as he was leaving his house for work at about 4:00 am, he would turn on his outside spot light, which just happened to be pointed at, you guessed it, my chicken coop, and that stupid rooster would start crowing his crazy head off.
Needless to say I put up a barrier to keep it from shining in the chicken coop and that put an end to my 4:00 am awakening. No, I didn’t make chicken-n-dumplins out of the old bird. He lived to crow another day.
Things like this you should consider if you are building a chicken coop.
Boy is it hot! The temperatures are over 100 degrees and the chickens are holding their wings out to catch every ounce of breeze they can just to keep cool. That’s why we need to do everything we can to help.
Provide them with shade, shelter, and plenty of water. I’m talking more to the backyard chicken farmer here or those of you who just have a couple of hens for eggs. The point is, they gotta stay cool, which is relative in this heat.
If you take care of your chickens and protect them from the elements, you will continue to have those home grown, fresh organic eggs that taste so good. Of course production can drop in the summer heat, but with the proper care you can still fill the basket.
Backyard Chicken Talk
The first time I started building a backyard chicken coop, about the only thing I knew was that I wanted a place the chickens could roost and lay eggs. As a kid I would visit my cousin and my uncle raised chickens in commercial chicken houses, sold the eggs and then the chickens too. But this did not however, make me an expert when I started building my own coop.
First of all, I used an old tool shed that was full of holes and put up a few posts, built a gate and nailed up the chicken wire. It held the chickens ok but was a major pain to clean. As a result after about six months of chicken poop, it started to really stink and then disease hit the flock.
It took me a couple of months to figure out what the problem was and by the time I got it corrected and cleaned out I had lost severl good laying hens. If only I had then a good set of chicken coop plans, I would not have lost the investment in hens and there would have been more eggs. Never-the-less I learned an important lesson about raising chickens and building a chicken coop.
Do you have stories of your first chicken coop you would like to share? If you do, post your comments, stories and thoughts for everybody to read.
Backyard Chicken Talk
