Cock & Pullett - Bedfordshire

[Lucylou]

Does anyone have any experience of them? Went up there at the weekend in my search for a new hen house. Was impressed with the set up, they sell LF & Bantums, Guinea Fowl & Ducks. All were in excellent condition & the guy was so helpful & showed me the available chooks for sale etc. But I want the new house before more chooks.

They didn't have many houses to show me, they make them to order but 3 of the designs were Ark style & I don't want that. The owner wasn't there but apparently they will more or less make any style to order, just tell them what you want. But I hadn't heard of them, just Googled, so don't know if they're worth the money as still a couple of hundred plus.

I'd love a Flyte so Fancy, for several reasons e.g. highly reccommended,long lasting etc but they are above my price bracket. I have managed well with a converted tool shed for 3 years but its starting to fall apart & Hubby's not inclined to DIY! So my Christmas present was a new one which I haven't got yet!! Just wondered if anyone had any knowledge of them.

 

[Emchicks]

not heard of them and their website doesn't seem to give prices for the housing. I can recommend Littleacres, they have nice sturdy houses but not sure what your price range is, here's their website: http://www.littleacre-direct.co.uk/
Em

 

[chrismahon]

Nothing to stop you doing the DIY Lucylou. But I accept that unless you are going to stick with it and build more stuff like shelters and runs, buying all the tools and then building one will cost far more than ready made.

Worth looking at many and comparing the features and most importantly the practicalities of them and then waterproofness of the structure. Some have gaps water can get in through or parts that trap water and will rot. Can you get in to clean it out properly? Is the ventillation sufficient? How good is security? How many nest boxes? Bet you end up missing your shed because they really do make great fixed coops simply because you can stand up in them.

 

[Lucylou]

Thanks Em, had a quick look at the website & will spend longer when not at work!!

Chris - can you give me clues as to what to look for regards waterproofness, I've assumed that the roof should extend beyond the walls which will stop any rain. The roof of the houses at Cock & Pullett are felt (the green rough roofing stuff!) now, I've been led to believe from everyone on here & all the books, that felt is a red mite hiding place, what would your thoughts be? The guy said that as long as you're keeping the house clean you don't have any more likely chance of red mite than in a non-felt roofed house.

Also have been wondering about ventilation. How much is enough?
In my current house we drilled a row of round holes, not sure of diameter maybe 1", at the top on each side so there is through air flow but never really sure if this is enough. Would like a sliding ventialtion window in new house!

 

[chrismahon]

Worst places for water ingress are as follows Lucylou:-
Around the pop-hole door, particularly an external one which isn't fox proof either unless locked as they can tear it off.
Where an external nest box lid meets the coop wall. The cheapest way to seal that is with a flexible plastic strip which acts as a hinge. They do tear occasionally and have to be replaced but our one second hand coop sealed that way has lasted 4 years so far.
The top and sides of the entrance door. Really only a problem if there is a significant distance between the roof overhang and the door top.
Through the air vents unless they are protected by the overhang.

Remember it's not unusual to have rain driving at 45 degrees. Even we have had rain enter the vents on one occasion because I forgot to close the wind side. You have seen the size of the vents in my latest mobile coop. All the others have now been brought up to that spec. Problems are the extremes, very strong wind in Winter which needs small vents and still days particularly in Summer. We always have the vents fully open during the day and then varying between nearly closed (wind side only) and fully open at night.

Watch out for draughts around the door. Ours have a 34mm overlap, some have no overlap and the wind blows through the gap.

Felt roofs and red mite infestation is an 'urban myth' in my opinion. It will only happen when the coop is so overrun with red mite that there are no spaces left to go. If the roof is ply or closed boarded they can't get under there and on a hot sunny day they would roast anyway. Only ever heard of it once and someone actually said they only got red mite when they fitted an Onduline roof! One of our coops was heavily infested and the roof was open boarded so plenty of gaps. The roof was the only component that had no red mite in it -I peeled the felt off to look annoyingly, because it split and then had to be replaced!

 

[Lucylou]

Thanks Chris, very helpful.

 

[Chuck]

The biggest problem with felt is that you can't see unser it to see what's going on. I think sometimes we do overplay the risk of mite up there though I have found them myself when renewing the felt. Felt has been used for a lot of years and if it was so bad, it's use would have been dicontinued years ago. It's not that expensive to renew every two or three years and has a lot going for it.