I have what you may call a lot of coops. 5. They are situated on all sides of the clearing around our house. The bulk of the chicken supplies are kept in the garage which is more or less a central location, but feed bags won't fit in all the coops so it's all in the garage out of necessity. If I had to walk back to the garage for every little thing, I wouldn't have time for much else!
Unfortunately not all the coops have much storage space and I've had to be a little creative when coming up with chicken proof storage containers for inside the coops.
We started using large pretzel jars a few years ago. The in-laws like to buy in bulk and brought a bunch of empties over one day to see if we could use them. Ok...truth is they brought them over for hubby to use in the garage for tool parts and I snagged them....but I digress.
I used those for feed for a long time, then I started saving other jars. I save any plastic food jar with a screw on lid. Not the snap on lids as they can be popped off by chickens. Don't ask how I know this. LOL
I use them for grit, scratch, chick feed, oyster shell etc. Anything you might need in the coop....I have it in a food jar.
The important thing to remember when saving jars is to only use food containers. Containers purchased with cosmetic or cleaning products in them may leach out chemicals even after they're cleaned. I honestly don't know how much of a problem it can cause, but I'm not taking chances! I only use food safe containers.
I clean them out with regular water and dish soap, then air dry them completely before filling. I've been able to cut a lot of time off my chicken chores by having what I need on hand in each coop. As a bonus, every jar I reuse is one less thing that ends up in the landfill!
Want to know more about raising chickens? Click here for
my most read chicken keeping articles!
~L
Want information on raising chickens sent right to your email weekly?
Click right here to join my list and get new posts sent directly to you the day they're published ... plus, you'll also get the free download '25 Ways to save money raising chickens'.