Anyone keep chooks on an allotment?

[Lucylou]

Now the moving house plans are progressing I'm starting to think about the chooks & their new home. We're moving to smaller garden & also will be having building work done, not immediately but as soon as plans etc can be submitted. So don't want chooks disturbed more than necessary.

One option could be that I take an allotment, does anyone have any advice on this? Am worried about foxes, there are a few other chicken keepers there but until I actually move house can't ask anyone & need to organise this early in the process of moving. Anyone know how you manage opening & shutting up or do you have to have automatic closers? Went for a look & couldn't see any of these. The enclosures didn't look too much like 'fort knox' which surprised me but they did have a light weight net over the top, not wire.

Anyone with any info gratefully received!

From a stressed chicken mover !!

 

[Marigold]

Hi Lucylou, how many hens are we talking about? Do you currently have more than you can comfortably accommodate in your new garden? If so, you may need to plan a reduction in numbers, perhaps by rehoming some of them before the move to simplify things.
It sounds as if the allotment idea is as a temporary measure until you are sorted out in your new place, and assumes that you will be able to take on a suitable plot without being on a waiting list. Even if this worked out OK, you would still have to keep them in the garden for a while after you move, whilst you got on with erecting a run for them on the allotment. As the building work you plan won't start immediately, it would seem to me that this time and effort might be better directed to getting their permanent quarters built in your garden - assuming that is what you want to be able to do eventually. So long as you have a secure run for them during working hours I can't see why building work would be a problem for them. They would be much safer, and it would be potentially more possible to get someone willing to look after them when you go away if you cultivate the neighbours. Having to travel to an allotment even if its not too far away, is going to be a bind twice a day, especially in winter. And whatever the security of the other keepers down there is like, I wouldn't be happy with anything short of Fort Knox if my birds were being kept in a place open to predators or vandals, either with four feet or two. I live in a small town with a very low crime rate, but a year or so ago some louts broke into a pigeon loft on an allotment here, set free some of the birds and strangled the others, presumably for 'fun.' And poultry theft is very common as well, especially in unsupervised areas such as allotments at night.
Yes they can be kept on an allotment, but the investment of time, labour and materials is probably greater than it would be at home, and at the end none of it is a permanent solution, or a fully satisfactory one if there is any alternative, in my view.

 

[Lucylou]

Thank you Marigold, that's just the sort of info I needed. I only have 3 (for now ha ha!) I was mainly worried about the building noise & the dust as we're planning an extension.
The new garden is wide but not very long so there isn't anywhere far to get the chooks away from the build. Currently we live by a fairly main road & they're not fazed by the loud lorries or backfiring motorbikes so I guess they'll be OK with building noise which I don't suppose will be much actually, its more dust.
I was planning to use a temporary chook house that I already have until I can build the final one (which isn't practical until the house extension is done due to other things in the way) so I'll work on that plan.

 

[dinosaw]

I think Marigold is right about the practicalities, with regards to building work if it's lots of banging that won't bother them, it tends to be the higher pitched power tools such as angle grinders and circular saws that can freak them out no end though if it is persistent they do get used to it eventually.

 

[Marigold]

I think they would be OK if you could screen the side of the run where they could see builders coming and going, perhaps carrying big objects which might alarm them. If they feel they have cover overhead and at the side, not only will they be drier and more windproof but will feel less stressed. I ex pect they will get used to building noise, actually a lot of the time building isn't very noisy, just occasional outbreaks! Like the rest of the family they will just have to put up with it, won't they? Neighbours either side of us, and also opposite, have built a staggered series of extensions over the past 3-4 years (when one lot finished, the next got going!) and the worst part has been the builders' radios playing constant noisy music all the time.
(Why don't builders ever have Mozart or Bach on their sound systems?)

 

[Lucylou]

Thank you both.

I had thought I would screen the side anyway to protect from any dust blowing their way so I'll incorporate that into the plan.

Another question, I know moving them is stressful for them, (I had one new pullet go into a full stress moult when I got her home) what do you think if I put them in a temporary house, in situ, for a few nights whilst we sort something more temporarily permanent :? iyswim ! The thought being I have a small coop that is the isolation ward, only used once, big enough for 3 I think (have to measure ) but I would want something better, even though its very well made, if they had to stay in it long term, even for 6 months (which is what the builder recons the extension will take) I plan a temporary run for now then later the plan is to have something that looks like part of the garden (more like a trellis structure with creeper or roses growing round it, if I can stop them eating it!! )
So basically they'd move home but not position again. How do you think they'd cope?

They're elderly ladies, 2 still laying regularly 1 when she feels like it!

 

[dinosaw]

They should cope fine with that, it's moving position that stresses them Lucylou, the being caught and boxed then driven to an unrecognisable place. I have moved hens between coops on the same site several times and never had any problems with them stress wise just a bit of 'where has our house gone' moaning from them.

 

[Marigold]

Have you got any chicken netting and poles, Lucylou? Although not foxproof it does keep them restrained in a small area whilst giving them a bit more room and freedom around their coop during the day.

 

[Lucylou]

Was thinking of that Marigold, could be the solution.