So, have you ever thought what is the best or right chicken coop for my needs.  Of course, if you only have about 3 to 7 hens that could be different from the type that you will need if you say, 30 hens?  What do you do when you have @ 120 to 150 hens???

When we first started, we had a medium sized coop.  However, this one was given to us by our friends.  It weighed a ton. Literally, and why because it was made out of waterbed material.  Imagine what a struggle that was!

Needless to say, that coop really didn't last long, and my husband thought that the chickens needed a Hotel.  Now, I am talking almost literal.  It was a beautiful coop and very airy, however, in the winter time that is not always good.  I will touch basis on that a little later on!

So, this coop was about a 8x8 and about 4 ft off the ground.  They loved hanging out under the house.   That is also not always a good idea, since they go under their and hang out and if they are small they always don't go into their house on their own by themselves when they are still small.  Thank goodness my daughter is.  LOL!

We have had a lot of practice on building coops.  In our current yard, we have 3 large coops that hold about 25 to 30 hens each.  In Coop One we have our variety, in Coop Two we have our Americauna and Aracana birds with the Leghorns, and in Coop Three we have all of our Orpingtons, w/one Orpington Rooster and one Banty Rooster (which is happy feet son).   We have 5 medium sized coops.  I have one that is just for my Silkie Hens, this includes One Wing and Fancy Feet, which are my two roosters in there.  One wing, only has use of one wing, somehow it was damaged when born so has a hard time staying on the hens, he is black. Fancy Feet is my white one, and they get along for the most part, along with their 8 hens.  Then in my 2nd medium sized we have our Banty House.  We have Happy Feet, who is beautifully Black!  He has two women, one is Ms. Frizzle who is beautifully white banty, and Misses Garrett. (yes after facts of life).  He also has three others that live in there that are a banty type mix, I have two little birds that look like pigeons, but they are called english game birds, and their names are lucy and ethel.  (yes, I love lucy).  and then our Partridge banty, who is brown in color, I call her Matilda (yes after the movie, because she goes from yard to yard).   In our 3rd medium one, we have our Polish Hens with Rooster, and right now my Ameracauna Rooster.  Then the 4th one is our Light Brahma area with a rooster too!  Of course the last 4 areas our ones that I use to incubate and make more chicks with to use and sell.  Then in the 5th medium coop we have our variety mix, which include one more of happy feet son, and a couple of birds that actually had frostbite, which happened in brooder box since babies spread out and when we had our awful chill, two of them got frost bite.  We renamed two of them to stumpy and hoppy due to that fact.  Not a fun time, we had to cut the toes that were falling off and spray w/wound coat, but they made it through!   I I have 1 brooder box that hold now all our little chickies that the hens hatch, and some that we have incubated as well!  

I will try to post some pics of the areas.  You will be able to see the different designs that we have, in the Silkie area they have one that Looks like a condo.

We had actually redid the large coops after the winter time, since they had too much air space. Please be careful when making a coop, they like to snuggle it keeps them warm!!

So, we were talking of Farm Fresh Eggs and the prior cost.  For the variety of color that you are able to obtain in these dozen of eggs, $3.00 is a steal!  However, the health benefits that they will provide for you, is priceless!

Like I stated in my original post, we have a variety of layer hens.  By having a variety, we also are able to obtain a variety of colors of eggs, too!  The green/blueish eggs and including the olive colored ones, they derive from the Ameraucana

and Araucana hens!  The light brown, they are usually the most common variety of hens and can derive from Orpingtons,

the black sex links, polish hens, barred rock hens, etc.  We do however, on occasions will see the rose colored eggs, right below the green one in the middle.  These come from the Orpingtons and the Rhode island red variety.

  The white ones come from the white leghorns that I have.

  Do you see that really dark looking egg, that actually comes from a 

Black Copper Maran hen. They lay darker egg varieties.  However, just because the paint on the outside is different all the insides remain the same!

So, here is a great question for beginner's that are just wanting to obtain chickens or for fun?  How long does it take a chicken to lay an egg??

I have had many questions from myself and others since starting "Our Chicken Farm",  which I truly love and enjoy!  Some of questions that arose are as follows:

Do chickens get bugs?  They sure do, they have 2 little rascals that do invade their primary area, and live and thrive on their bodies.  Those are louses (lice) and mites.  However, to provide you with a peace of mind, all chicken lice is non-transferable to humans.  Thank goodness, because that is what I thought when I had my first experience with the lice.  The best way to control and prevent, matter of speaking, because they will always have them, its really about controlling them to not annoy the chicken.

The best medicine of attack is the poultry, or really garden dust.  If they have a favorite dusting spot, place some of the white powder in there, or in a box container in their area, and they will do it themselves.  Otherwise, pick up each chicken and turn them over so that there vent (where the egg comes out) and you will see those little critters there, and place some dust in that area to begin with but dust the chicken at least once a month to control.  Leave some in their favorite dusting area however and this will control more soundly.  The mites you will want to spray with a insecticide since they live within the coop and up on the rooster rails, and place some powder on the rooster rails, since they will crawl on them at night time and with the powder this will also help prevent it!

What do you do with all the eggs?  Great question, we started selling the eggs at the local Crooked River Ranch Saturday Market, and also outside on our front porch we sell them from my sons little fridge that we purchased for his room that he doesn't use.  So, out to the front porch it went, and we stock it with the daily takings from the chickens with their beautifully colored eggs.  We place a box right next to it, just a tupperware container, with a cut through the top of the lid, and that is where they place there monies from their purchases of the eggs!  We sell eggs from our house at 6240 Sw Mustang Rd in Crooked River Ranch.  The eggs are $3.00 per dozen and $4.50 for an 18 pack!  They are very fresh indeed, we are currently averaging approximately 6 dozen a day!  Come out for a drive and pick yourself up some farm fresh eggs!  Also, we do make deliveries to some areas in Central Oregon!  Try us out, once you do you will not go back to the market bought eggs!

Davis Farm Fresh Eggs was created when we started 4-h for my daughter's lamb.  We received 14 chickens and a coop when my daughter's friend had to make room for her lamb.  Once we received them, my husband said we had to get rid of half of them.  Which of course i did.  However, then we went to the feed store to obtain feed for the chickens, and what do you know baby chicks!  My husband stated, oh how cute, now we need to get some of these, since they will know who we are!

So, now that we are from 7 chickens to over 150 chickens, we are now chicken farmers for eggs that is!  We have a great time on our farm and we truly enjoy it.  We have all different variety of chickens, so even the eggs are a variety of colors from brown to white, to deep brown, and even blue and green eggs!