Back yard chickens, getting started

[Ashful]

So, despite many close (but now passed) aunts and uncles being farmers, I've managed to reach middle life knowing very little about chickens. So, now my 6-year old boy wants to get some, and I think, why not? We have the space, they don't appear to demand an enormous amount of time, after the initial set up. We have space, and heck... this is an old farm house, after all.

So, we have set about watching tutorials on YouTube, and reading beginner's guides on the web, to the extent his mature-for-6-years-old attention span can handle. Of course, he wants to go buy them today, but I'd rather build the coop and yard/pen, first.

Seems to me, we've missed the window on buying day old chicks for this year, which is fine by me. I'm not sure that fragile day olds with a average survival rate of 50% and a requirement for mundo attention is a good way to start a young farmer. It might be the perfect time to buy 6-week hens, but shouldn't I get a coop built, first?

Looking for advice on buying, and coop construction, first. We've familiarized ourselves with the breeds already, and he loves the Easter egger mutts, which is good, since they're cold hardy! Our hens will live outdoors year round, and we do get 0 degF and 30" snows some years, but we can build them a luxury heated henhouse to accommodate. We just need some guidance!


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[heat seeker]

We buy older chickens at a local pet store in season. Lacking that, we ask around for people who have too many and want to get rid of some. We tried the young chick thing, and find it tough when some of them die. That could be a life lesson for a six year old, but perhaps a really tough one.

No need to heat the hen house, as long as it's reasonably wind proof. Our girls live in an old tack room in the barn. No heat, and it gets rather cold here in CT. They are well fed, plenty of water, and out of the wind. They do fine in the winter.

If you have a bit of land, consider a chicken tractor. They're not difficult to build, and are quite useful.

If you let the roam, predators will surely get them unless you have a good guard dog or something similar. Our neighbors tried that twice, and the whole flock got wiped out in about a week.

Try joining a chicken owner's forum, lots of helpful people on those.

The chickens are a blast to watch when outside. We let ours out on occasion, and it really is entertaining to watch them, especially when they take their dirt baths!

And, there's nothing like the fresh eggs they'll give you! All things considered, they are expensive eggs, but worth it.

ETA: It's unreal how many people think that you can't get eggs without a rooster. No rooster needed, and they are noisy!

 

[Seasoned Oak]

Check your local codes. Backyard chickens were banned here a few years ago when someone decided to get a bunch of noisy roosters that caused a flood of complaints to the local zoning board. Not sure why they just didnt ban roosters,ignorance of livestock i guess.

 

[BrotherBart]

The big thing around here now is renting chickens. Having grown up raising the things I had to just chuckle.

Can't raise them here because.all I would be doing is feeding raccoons, possums and foxes.

 

[heat seeker]

Renting??? How would that work? What do you do when one dies - lose your deposit? Who gets custody of the eggs? Who selects/pays for the feed? Who owns the manure? The possibilities are endless.

 

[BrotherBart]

Renting??? How would that work? What do you do when one dies - lose your deposit? Who gets custody of the eggs? Who selects/pays for the feed? Who owns the manure? The possibilities are endless.

http://www.rentacoop.com/

 

[heat seeker]

Cool!

 

[Ashful]

Awesome, thanks heat seeker! No issues with space or neighbors here. When I say "backyard", I don't mean to imply I'm living on a half-acre suburban lot. ;-)

I had not heard the term "chicken tractor" before, but it makes sense, now. I had always seen the classic coop with what looks like a tractor abutted to it:



I had just figured this was the way to go, and perhaps it still is. I can see the advantage of making that cage mobile, tho.

On free ranging, I don't think my wife would tolerate that. I figure the only way this will work is to keep them away from the house, up by the barn. That means they won't have the benefit of protection from our dogs, who are kept close to the house by invisible fence. So, no free ranging for us.

 

[heat seeker]

Most chicken tractors look similar to your photo, but have wheels on one end, so you pick up the other end and move it along every few days. The bottom is mesh, so the dropping go through, and the girls get to eat the bugs in the grass. Two mice had the misfortune to get into our coop. The chickens killed and ate most of them. Chickens can be pretty vicious, especially to each other. We've had no serious problems though. They figured out their pecking order (literally) pretty fast. They are a blast, though!

 

[BrotherBart]

Chickens can be pretty vicious,

No kidding. When I was four years old I was spurred to a bloody pulp by a rooster. The next time he tried it Dad swung the egg bucket and that rooster had a major attitude adjustment.

 

[begreen]

 

[Jazzberry]

I got 6 New Hampshire Red chickens. I bought 8 but lost two of them over the last year. Don't know why they just never came home one night but we do have foxes, raccoons, hawks, eagles, mountain lions, bears, bobcats, occasional dogs etc. They are never penned up except at night. Free ranging all over the neighbor hood. All my neighbors say no problem they find them very amusing and free eggs every once in a while helps also. They come home to lay eggs in the day usually one at a time and come home every night without fail to go to bed in their hen house. I lock them up at night cause of all the critters. They are extremely friendly and tame. Wouldn't be without them. Cant find a bug in my yard or my neighbors yards anymore. They will dig for worms/bugs if you have landscaping so you have to use chicken wire around the plants. I am up around 5,000 feet elevation in the pines so landscaping is pretty rare here anyways. Usually get from 5 to 9 eggs a day from them and they taste way better than the store-bought version. I highly recomend them.

 

[Ashful]

One complicating factor is that we don't eat many eggs. A purchased dozen lasts us at least two weeks, probably longer. I'm sure egg intake will go up, if we have chickens, but surely not much more than a dozen per week. So, I'm figuring only 3 hens to start.

Since I'll have so few, I'm figuring I will want some supplemental heat, and no one seems to argue that some extra hours of light can help in winter. So now I need to figure how to arrange that in a small coop like the one above.

Re: mobile tractor. Have the coop travel with the tractor, vs separating the tractor from the coop? I definitely want a raised coop, with egg access from side doors, for easy retrieval, and ramp down into pen.

Re: chicken forums. Any recommendation?




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[Ashful]

Vid won't play on iPhone. Will try from PC tonight.


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[begreen]

Re: chicken forums. Any recommendation?

http://www.backyardchickens.com/f/
http://www.chickenforum.com/forum.php

 

[Highbeam]

We have 15 chickens at the moment and have had chickens for that last 8 years or so including a batch of 30 chicks that I mailordered and raised to be meat birds, don't do that it costs way too much and the meat is no better than store birds. So egg birds. Yes, easy and recommended. We use a dog kennel arrangement made out of 6' tall chain link fence panels bolted together. Inside is a 12" deep layer of woodchips to keep it dry. I built a permanent coop instead of a tractor. You do not want to let them loose during the day, they crap all over and the poop piles are like a nasty cow pie. That and they peck your vegetables and kick your landscaping bark all over looking for bugs. Keep them cooped.

Nothing wrong with buying chicks. They don't die often. I've only ever had one dead chick.

 

[Seasoned Oak]

Unless your looking for something you cant get in a store. Friend of mine raises meat birds that get about 15 Lbs then smokes em. Not too often you see a 15 LB chicken. Look as big as turkeys. Grow fast too.

 

[Highbeam]

Unless your looking for something you cant get in a store. Friend of mine raises meat birds that get about 15 Lbs then smokes em. Not too often you see a 15 LB chicken. Look as big as turkeys. Grow fast too.

Oh man, I mail ordered the famous Cornish cross breed for my batch of meat birds. They are known as frankenbirds by some. They were selectively bred to quickly and efficiently convert feed to meat. They grow FAST! But that's not all, they were also bred to grow a disproportionate amount of white meat. So they are quite busty and with scrawny legs they can barely walk. They just park themselves at the feeder and eat. Oh and they're pure white because it was deemed desirable to have light colored skin and the birds with white feathers have whiter skin.

We've thought about trying turkeys but they are pretty stinky and loud.

 

[sportbikerider78]

We have 15 chickens at the moment and have had chickens for that last 8 years or so including a batch of 30 chicks that I mailordered and raised to be meat birds, don't do that it costs way too much and the meat is no better than store birds. So egg birds. Yes, easy and recommended. We use a dog kennel arrangement made out of 6' tall chain link fence panels bolted together. Inside is a 12" deep layer of woodchips to keep it dry. I built a permanent coop instead of a tractor. You do not want to let them loose during the day, they crap all over and the poop piles are like a nasty cow pie. That and they peck your vegetables and kick your landscaping bark all over looking for bugs. Keep them cooped.

Nothing wrong with buying chicks. They don't die often. I've only ever had one dead chick.

I think it depends on the area.

My cousin has many farm acres in upstate NY. He lets them out every day and they come back every evening. Since he got 2 roosters to help guard the hens, it has been working out really well.

 

[Ashful]

Cool. I actually did buy 4 chicks (mail order) a few days ago, based on Highbeam's experience. We got one each of Easter Egger, Barred Rock, Buff Brahma, Light Brahma. Figured the mix of breeds would help with an easier establishment of heirarchy (without a rooster) and reasonable egg production all year round. All of these are "especially cold-hardy" breeds.

So, chicks on order for delivery in two weeks, plus 8 weeks in a Rubbermaid tote with heat, means I need a coop ready in about 8 weeks. With time so short, and my son's attention span being only slightly above average for a 6 year old, I figured I'd just buy a coop. This is where the trouble starts.

The coops labeled for 4 - 6 chickens are absurdly small, allowing only maybe 1 sq.ft. of coop space and maybe 3 - 4 sq.ft. of run space, per chicken. Since mine won't get much (if any) free-ranging time, I want to find something around 15 sq.ft. in the coop and 25 sq.ft. in the run, but I can't find anything in that size that doesn't get horrendous buyer reviews for leaking, poor quality, parts not fitting, shipping damage, etc.

Advice? Yes, I'm completely capable of building (my hobbies are renovating old houses, building furniture, etc.), but really didn't want to take the time to do this right now. Also, I'm not really sure what features I would want to include, never having had chickens before. I was hoping to save the build until we had enough experience to decide this would be permanent, and to know what we would want to build.

 

[Jazzberry]

Heres a pic of the one I made in a day from a few 2x4s and 3 sheets of plywood. Works great. Going on 2 years old and wouldn't change anything. All dimensions are 48" or less in order to make use of the 4x8 plywood. Could support maybe 15 chickens or so.

 

[Jazzberry]

a few more

 

[Ashful]

Thanks, Jazzberry. Any thoughts on prep'ing a unit like that for winter? We often see a few days below zero, and some years have a lot of snow and ice. Average winter highs and lows are probably not far from yours (20F nights with 30F days), but it's not that unusual for us to have a stretch where days are 15F and nights are -5F.


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[Jazzberry]

Gets cold in the winter here also thats why I got Hampshires. They do fine in the winter. I originally had Rhode Island Reds but sold them before winter and bought Hampshires due to advice from a neighbor. Much better eggs and chickens also. Usual process is to hang a light in the henhouse for winter. Another cool thing to get is an electric henhouse door which I don't have yet. Sometimes getting up early in the morning to let them out and locking them in at night is a pain.

 

[BrotherBart]

Don't get too big of a flat screen TV for them. It hurts their eyes. 24" is about right.