Coops and run - any pics?

[Anonymous]

Hi all

I'm completely new to chickens (will be hatching some eggs soon) and I want to get the chicken house sorted soon. We will be using a dog run (8 x 5 foot). We are going to have a house inside for the girls to nest at night and were thinking about using an old hutch we have for this (this is approx 3 x 3 ft).

I need advice regarding the house - we want 4 chickens or bantams (depending on whether we use the eggs we've already got) - how big does the nesting box(es) need to be? How many? What should they be lined with (i.e bedding wise)? Do they need a perch inside the house? How big, thick should it be? How many perches? I'd prefer to modify the hutch we have otherwise its just going to get chucked out.

What do people use for the floor of the run area? The area they will be going on is already slabbed so we need something to put on top of that? Aubiose has been suggested to me, but so has sand and woodbark. I've heard lots of people mentioned poo trays, do you actually use a poo tray like you would a rabbit/cat or is it something different for chickens? Do the chickens actually poop in just one place or all over? What else should go in the run other than food and water of course? Any such toys, logs or things like that?

I'd really really appreciate any pics of people's set ups, especially detailed ones of inside the house.

Thanks so much for any help you can give.

Ria

 

[Lucylou]

Hi Ria & welcome to the mad chicken world :lol: You'll love it, but be warned - its very addictive :lol:

I have a little family of 5 chooks (was 7 originally) & I geared size of everything etc up for 7 LF. I can't let mine free range unless I'm out there with them so I have a large enclosed run something like 10 mts X 6 mts (I think!) mainly because we've got the space & I wanted them to have as much room as possible.

There was a long topic on what to put on the floor of a run back in the winter when there was all that terrible weather, everyone was having a nightmare with the mud :roll: In the end the best solution seemed to be Hard wood bark chippings, (not the sort from garden centres, someone found out that they produce a sort of spore that can adversley affect the chooks breathing but hardwood doesn't.) They will need something so that they can scratch around. The other thing is small,round, stone chippings, think the size is 1" but not sure. There is also a rubber chipping specially made for this sort of thing, but I've looked into this & its very expensive but you would find out about it if you googled.

Nest boxes sould be 12" square for a LF & I put wood shavings (not sawdust) on the floor of the house & line the nestbox with it, then put a layer of nice straw in the nestbox. The shavings must be dust extracted & are cheap & I get mine from an equestrian supply shop. They sell the food, straw, shavings etc. Much cheaper too

They need to perch at night, it should be 12" off the floor (or a little higher), allowing 12" per bird (less for bantums) made from 1"- 1.5" x 1", sanded wood so they don't get splinters, with rounded edges so they can grip. The perch has to be removable for cleaning. 1 perch is enough as they like to snuggke up.

My hen house is made from a small shed,

 

[Lucylou]

Hi Ria again, I was trying to upload a photo of my coup but lost the plot :roll: Will have to get hubby to do it!

It is a small shed (we had it already & wanted to make use of it) & adapted it. the nestboxes are added to one side with a lift-up lid for access, & a pop hole cut into the other side. I then got a few more chooks so needed an 'extension' which was added to the back! Sounds like a mansion At the time the whole excersise was costing so much I had to economise somewhere but this summer I'm going to have a new one

You might find some really useful books in the library, that's where I started 2 yrs ago. Sadly this forum wasn't around then (I don't think) & I floundered about, panicking mostly :? & the library was a good start. In those days it was quite good having some info regularly at hand to actually look at & not knowing which books to buy I didn't want to spend a fortune on books that were geared towards experts & full of info I couldn't use.

You might find these useful:- "The Right way To Keep Chickens" by Virginia Shirt. "Keeping Pet Chickens" Johannes Paul & William Windham (this one's pretty basic but 2 years ago my knowledge was pretty basic!) & a lovely little book someone gave me "Henkeeping" by Jane Eastoe. All these also have good pictures of hen houses.

Hope you enjoy the journey!!! Hopefully this very long answer might be of some use. Good luck.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks lucy, thats really helpful.

I've been looking more and more into wood bark, it seems a good idea. Someone did warn that it can get pretty wet and soggy but I guess if its the harder stuff it shouldn't be so bad. Do you know where to buy this from?

I think we've got the plans sorted for the house now, I just need the other half to get cracking on it! Then we just need to put the dog run together and get the house in.

What other things do you have in your run? Other perches and such like?

 

[Lucylou]

I've got a couple of big logs (actually its the truck of an old cherry tree) that they love to peck at or stand on, an old table :lol: used as shelter from rain / sun, & a couple of perches. 1 is free standing made from a branch which I also hang treats from & 1 is permanently fixed across a corner.

Someone suggested that the best way to get hard wood chippings was from a tree surgeon when he's chopping someone's tree down! Don't know how practical this is for you but its an idea.

 

[elmwood]

Hi,

All sound advice.

Our three Pekins tend to hudlle together in the nest box. They have only started perching recently, each top and tail along one of the three perching bars. As our girls free range, so they pooh as and when everywhere . i.e. the whole garden. Their overnight poohs are all in three little piles, which I remove each day, because I don't want them sitting on the poohs when laying their eggs.
They don't have toys as such, but they do like to sit on the ramp of the house, and watch the world go by.
They also like to play "grape" footie- their favorite treat. The garden is their playground, and they love to scamble over a pile of logs, the rockery, and love scratching at the gravel. So maybe you could incorporate some of these things in your setup, as others has advised.

I would say that after 3 months of hen-keeping, and two houses later, I would love to modify a shed or such like for our girls. We would also use some kind of plastic type adapted boxes for nest boxes to enable easy of cleaning etc. rather than wood. Also after only 3 months our roof started to leak. So we replaced it with Onduline, which has proved to be just the ticket. Wickes, and B&Q sell it in sheets. Its corrugated Bitumen sheet roofing. Sturdy and nowhere for red-mites to hide.

The "Jane Eastoe" book is our bible, she has such a common sense approach to hen-keeping, and it is well worth a fiver. We bought ours on-line.

All the best with your new venture- i'll take some pics and post.

 

[Anonymous]

Hi, Ria and welcome,
Like Elmwood, I've been keeping hens for about 3 months. I put woodchips in the run area, not bark, after reading the threads on fungus etc. These I got from Rainbow Woodchips (find them online) and they are natural coloured, though you can, as the name suggests, get them in almost every shade of the rainbow. This wood is the inside of the tree, excluding the bark, which I thought might be safer. My 6 pekins love it. I sometimes wonder whether they thnk they're digging for China the way they grub about in it. In places it's quite deep, so they look quite comical when they start disappearing into the holes they dig.
As for the roosting - none of mine do, they just all huddle together in a piggy heap.
Have fun, you're going to love this.
x

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks again everyone.

We're def going with woodchips or bark now, I had a good look online last night and found some decent places. Our neighbour is a landscape gardener so I'm going to ask him if he knows any tree surgeons who could help us out, which would be great.

I'm so so excited now, I feel like a child at Christmas! I'm off to some local feed merchants today to research on prices, etc and will hopefully start buying things at the weekend. We've got all the main stuff, just need feed, feeders, bedding and such like. Oh and the chicks! :lol:

 

[elmwood]

Hi,

Having read your threads you seem to have everything in hand.... and I can feel the excitement. I was exactly the same.

Here are our coops, and given our budget they are fine, but now we have more experience and know our girls very well, we would probably modify things......

 

[Anonymous]

OK, inspired by Sharrron, Elmwood, I've taken some pictures, and here they are...

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks guys. Your setups look great!

I'm glad you've mentioned ventilation as I hadn't thought about it for the house. We want to use a hutch, which has a meshed front on it, do you think I will need to cover this so that its dark inside? And then put some holes around the hutch for ventilation?