Chicken coops plans

Way more than you really asked but…

So far the only two labels to mean much in the United States are “Organic” which has more to do with the feed than much else though it does guarantee cage-free and “access” to the outdoors (not that there will be much out there for them so why would they bother?) and Certified Humane Raised via the Humane Society of the US acting as a third party certifier.

The best to buy is indeed to get them straight from a local farmer who has a small flock (I know one who has about 300 and another who has 44… now) which can free-range through pastures (they don’t have to be organic nor does the supplementary feed which has bubbled up in price recently — the US just doesn’t grow much organic instead relying on other countries so organic is bonus). Purchases can often be done via the Farmers Markets, or Co-Ops or even through Community Supported Agriculture.

However the egg that can’t be beat (fortunately not literally) is one from your own yard. It’s legal in a great many cities to keep a few hens. The cities include New York, Chicago, Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles, Madison, and many more plus new ones every month or so. They eat kitchen scraps, aerate lawns and gardens and produce great fertilizer. It’s amazing the depth of personality a chicken can have so not only do they double as great pets but cheep entertainment too.

I really like this post on raising a micro-flock as it was the first to really get me thinking it could be done (there’s a couple girls two blocks away and I’m taking them some turnip tops today). There’s also a great link to understanding egg carton claims there from brown eggs to feed to omegas to hormones and antibiotics; however the picture they have of a battery cage hen is of a particularly healthy and not representative. The Humane Society themselves at their posting about the differences in caged versus uncaged has a better picture that better reflects reality for these poor birds yet isn’t a gross picture as so many can be since these ladies spend a year or two in a wire cage with several others and less than a notebook paper size space to move around in before they are gassed for the next crew (sorry, my soapbox tripped me up again). It really is a miserable existence including having their feet grow into the wires and having their feathers rubbed off for being so closely packed in not to mention the ammonia of the buildings where thousands of their mates are also stuck in with them.

For a great 4 minute video on what a pastured operation is really like check out the Edible Portland blog. They featured a co-op. In the UK free-range actually means something and it is something like a cross between what it means here and what Pastured is for the girls in the video. Pastured is far healthier for the eater as well.

Here’s another fun post on whether fresh eggs can be stored without refrigeration. The consensus I’ve found is that natural eggs have a coating that seals off the pores of the egg which gets washed off in production (the egg then usually gets a corn-based coating after a corn-based wash) so you don’t want to leave supermarket eggs out for any time but from the farm unwashed they should be fine for at least several hours (I’ve heard of farmers finding an errant nest of a dozen for a broody hen and the eggs were all fine). The one thing about very fresh eggs is that they do not peel well when hard boiled. That is indeed a sign of freshness.

After seeing the pictures and the video it should be pretty explanatory the reasons for the cost differences. To give you the short answer to your question though, likely organic is the better of the two you had because organic already implied cage-free.

Incoming search terms for the article:

• how to build a chicken coop free plans ()