Newbie to forum and chickens

N

Nitram

New member
Joined
Mar 7, 2014
Messages
37
Reaction score
0
:D Hello from the other side of the pond! My wife and I have our coop and Run built and are just waiting for the arrival of 9 Red sex-link pullets and one red sex-link cockerel. We live in Virginia about 40 miles east of Lynchburg. I am a native Virginian, my wife is Canadian, my in-laws are from Crawley England......... So I guess in a round about way we belong here! :-)10

My name is Martin and my wife is named Debora. Being new to raising chickens your forum seems to be the most active, friendly, and knowledgeable is the reason I joined. Our coop is the back half of an 8x12 shed and we have an 8x16x3 run that is covered, 4 feet is covered with corrugated metal, the rest is with chicken wire stapled to removable frames. For inside the coop we have a hanging feeder and a hanging watering can. We have 6 nesting boxes with a steeply sloped cover as well as enough roost for a dozen hens. We have pine shavings for litter and the floor is removable to allow for cleaning as well as the entire nesting box area.

In the run we will have a water station as well as a feeding station, a dusting bin, a small feed container for ground oyster shells and another for grit, all of which will be under the covered section of the run.

Okay I think I described what we have so far. Are we missing anything? Any suggestions or input will be appreciated.

Thanks to all!
 
Here is a pic of the covered portion of our run.
 

Attachments

  • image.jpg
    image.jpg
    134.3 KB · Views: 2,717
Here is one of the 6 nesting boxes.
 

Attachments

  • image.jpg
    image.jpg
    105.9 KB · Views: 2,716
Hello and welcome to the forum from an English early riser.
You have now joined the ranks of chicken lovers/keepers, and it is a wonderful world, make sure they do not completely take over your life.
Your set up looks good, mine is about to be re-made, as the wet weather over here has nearly made me give up. What is mostly a dry dusty run has become over the last year, a total bog, and somehow will have to be dried out, dug and roofed for the future.
I have mixed girls, particularly loved are a purebred black Croad Langshan, (who says Jersey Giants are the biggest hens in the world?) Suki, and a Cornish game girl, Indi, who seems to have fallen in love with my huge white/black cat Boris!
Look forward to hearing of your hen adventures.
 
Hello Nitram and welcome to the forum. I really like the brilliant idea of the nest box trays. We have low runs at only 4 feet and struggle to get into them. In fact I am laid up at the moment with a bad back resulting from taking a big drinker inside. All our runs are 'flat pack' and lightweight because of all the moving around we have to do but hopefully, when we settle, they will be fixed in permanent positions and the height will be increased by another 2 feet. So be careful when you go into the run.
 
Hi Martin and Deborah, and a big welcome to the Forum, its good to have some more overseas members.
It's always very exciting to get new birds, and I'm sure you'll have a wonderful time with them, and lots of eggs.
I do feel, however, that you are planning rather a lot of birds for the run space available. Your run equates to about 14 square yards, which I suppose is around 13 square metres. We recommend that each bird has a minimum of 2 sq. metres of run space each, especially if you plan to keep a cockerel. (Hens will lay just as well without a cockerel, if you don't intend to breed from them.) That would mean about 5 hens and 1 cockerel, rather than the 10 birds you mention. If you overcrowd poultry, you will get a lot of problems, such as feather-pecking and bullying, which lead to stress and probably to injury - chickens can be really nasty to weaker members of the flock if there isn't enough space for them to spread out and get away. The low level of the run will make it difficult for you to catch the birds, because you would have to crawl in to them, also this will not be nice if kneeling in poo.
You will in any case need to get in there every day to poo pick, as 10 chickens will make an enormous amount of muck and if not kept clean it will soon become a smelly morass. The pine shavings should help to make it easy to pick up the poo daily, if you can get in there! One idea which has worked well for me for some years is to line the floor with permeable landscape fabric, well pegged down, all over, and then put bedding on top. The chickens can scratch in the bedding but can't scratch mud into it from below, which keeps it cleaner for longer. I agree with Chris that low runs are very hard on the back, as well as difficult to keep clean.
One thing my hens like is to hang out together on a long perch where they can see out and watch what's happening in the garden, but with a low run this might not be possible.
The nestboxes are lovely, and they will have plenty of choice. You actually only need one nestbox for every 4 hens, and may well find they only use one or two of them - they are very funny about where they choose to lay.
What predators do you get on Virginia? Here in the UK we have to be very careful to ensure that foxes can't dig their way in under the edges of runs, and from the pics you posted it looks as if you have used chicken wire rather than weldmesh. Many predators here can bite through chicken wire as it's not very strong. It's just devastating when you find your flock has been attacked, so I hope it never happens to you.
Anyway, we will look forward to more news as you get ready for the new birds!
 
Well it is almost 4AM here, could not get to sleep. Thanks to all for the welcome.


Marigold I agree that the run is small for the numbers, we have 3 acres of our own and plan on free ranging them as long as the weather allows. We live in a very rural area, the road we are off of is a dead end with only 2 houses below us. One neighbor has 1 acre, the other has 20, there is a 3,000 acre tree farm across the road from us. We have one acre of woods on each side of us and 1 acre cleared with our house on it. I pray that free ranging is going to work out for us..... If not I will have to extend the run. All sections of the run have 4 foot sections that can easily be lifted off for cleaning which I can do while the flock is out and about, or if need be I can lock the flock in the coop while I clean the run.

The number of nesting boxes was to make the wife happy! I tried to tell her that 3 would be enough....... She is happy which is always a good thing :-)08
 
That sounds excellent, you didn't mention that you were going to be able to let them free range during the day. You are very lucky to have so much space for them. I think the whole scale of chicken keeping on a hobby forum like this tends towards the comparatively miniature!whilst the free ranging is wonderful fir the birds, I do still gave a little niggle about what predators are local to you, though. Will they just be able to go wherever they want, or do you plan any sort of enclosure?
 
Chrismahon thanks for the welcome, sorry about your back, hopefully it heals quickly, the tops of our runs are in sections we can easily take off or stack one or the other, so far the only issue I have had for myself is I made the coop door about 3 inches to short so I bumped my head several times while building it!

Valeriebutterly thanks for the welcome, sounds like you have a nice variety of chickens, we are sticking with our 10 Red sex-links for now. If 10 seem to be a good number for us then we will replace any lost with other varieties.

Marigold you asked about predators here, we'll we have our share, snakes, bear, fox, possum, raccoon, and hawks! I have never seen a bear within 10 miles of me, having 4 dogs I have never seen a fox, possum or raccoon around my place. I am going to put up some flood lights outside of the coop that will be turned on by motion detectors. I have done what can be done in my area to keep the flock safe at night while locked in their coop.

Thanks to all for advice and encouragement, I am sure I will be here begging for help due to me forgetting something or not doing it right.
 
I see you're still up very early, Nitram! Our posts crossed in mud- Atlantic I think. Some people enclose their flick with chicken netting and an electric generator. Thus is goid because you can rest the areas theyve been on and move them to fresh grass when needed, as well as extra daytime security.
 
Marigold we plan on keeping an eye on them while they are out. A simple shotgun blast into the air will scare of any bad critters! One of the great things about living out in the boonies.
 
Trouble with that Nitram is it will scare the hell out of your chickens. The reflex action is to drop eggs early and then not lay for days afterwards. That's how to tell if there has been a predator around the coop in the night, shell-less eggs under the perches in the morning.
 
You'll have to make a watchtower and have a family rota 24/7, if you want to keep them safe that way!
It's just that we've had several heartbreaking stories of people losing chickens to predators, who come calling at any hour of the day or night, dig or chew their way into coops and runs, and devastate the flock. And as Chris says, the ones who may be left, if they recover, are often so traumatised that they seldom lay again, or take a long time to recover enough to do so. So do take security seriously - in any country area, the advantages of lovely free ranging can come at a heavy price,
 
Agreed we do not plan on leaving them out when we are not home. I do have access to a lot of free lumber and may start building a second coop and run soon. Obviously a larger run will be first priority if we have a problem free ranging.
 
All the work I put into those nice laying boxes....... They are both laying in a corner in a crater they dug in their litter!!!!! LOL
 
Hi Nitram - well girls will be girls!

I have 2 nest boxes but every now & then my 3 girls decide to lay their eggs in the far corner of the coop, haven't worked out the reason. I have been told that if the nest boxes are in a draught, or too light etc they won't use them & find somewhere they like. I read another chicken 'blog' where the owner couldn't work out where the eggs were going then discovered them in an old broken flowerpot in the garden!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Back
Top