A chicken’s needs are few, and pretty simple–yet these are things they MUST have
if you are going to keep chickens and not expect to find them horribly killed and
strewn about your yard one fine morning.
Coop– Basically a small shed, with some chicken accoutrements such as roosts, food
& water containers and nest boxes, secure against predators and vermin. Used to
securely house your chickens at night, during the day as a nesting area.
Run–Protected outdoor space, with a secondary set of food & water containers if needed,
safe from predators.
Basically that’s it.
Almost…
The Coop
Chicken Housing Explained
I've always said that the Chicken Mantra is: "If it's possible for a chicken to hurt
itself on something, somehow it will find a way." This means that when you build
a coop you should literally get down at chicken level and use your eyes and hands
to seek out sharp points, dangerous wire edges, loose bits of wire to get tangled
in, etc. This simple procedure can save you a lot of grief and vet bills. It's ridiculous
how often and how quickly chickens can get into trouble, just like a two year old
human child--which bears repeating, is a birds' basic intelligence level. They have
the curiosity of a two year old as well! To illustrate this, as I type this, Yin,
one of my hens--this one is 7 years old and you'd think she'd know better--just jumped
up on the edge of a tall cardboard box that I had on the porch and fell inside. I
had to go outside and rescue her...
In building the coop, at our house we use hardware cloth--the sturdy metal welded
wire fencing with the small, square holes--instead of chicken wire. Chicken wire
(also called ‘poultry netting’) is too flimsy and the holes are too large, NEVER,
EVER USE CHICKEN WIRE. I cannot stress this strongly enough. Also, chicken wire rusts
and becomes brittle with age, and predators can tear through it like tissue paper.
A good test is to see if YOU can tear down your run with your bare hands--and really
TRY, because that neighbor's dog sure will! If you can get through, so can a predator.
Make it strong. You should build your coop not only to keep your chickens (and baby
chicks!) IN, but to keep predators OUT. Baby chicks can easily slip right through
the holes in chicken wire, and small animals that might carry disease like mice,
rats and sparrows can slip in. Rats and mice can flatten themselves out to slip through
VERY small spaces--if their head can fit through a hole, so can the rest of their
body! Also larger predators can easily break though chicken wire or, as in the case
of raccoons, reach their little hands through the wire to grab and hold one of your
birds by a wing or leg and eat them by the handful right through the wire. The classic
raccoon attack is a chicken with it's back eaten out-- sometimes the bird survives,
suffering horribly from this gaping wound. I've heard many stories of chickens found
dead in a tightly locked up coop where this has happened, especially if they are
young birds and are sleeping next to the wire.
Chickens sleep pretty soundly at night and have poor night vision. Also, chickens
being a prey animal, they display the prey animal trait of seeming to just give up,
go into a trance and accept their fate the moment they feel a predator has them and
they cannot get away.
Also when building the coop, make sure to extend the fencing 4-6 inches BELOW ground,
and bend it outward. This keeps predators from simply digging under the wire and
into the coop from the outside, which is VERY common. Do not skip this step!. The
door to the coop should have very secure latches--we use TWO bolt-style latches.
One is at human eye level, the other is about 6 inches above the bottom of the door.
This is so a ground-based predator like a raccoon can't just grab the bottom of
the coop door and pry it open enough to get inside. Also a common problem, and not
to be skipped. Test your coop door by grabbing it at the top, middle and bottom
and pulling--if you can pry open a rat or mouse-sized access point, so can a predator!
Most predators are VERY determined, clever, strong and patient. Your coop door
should be very sturdy and strong enough to hold up to lots of use. Even better is
a set of double doors or aviary doors--you go through the first one into a small
chamber and must shut the first door before opening the second into the coop. You
see these in aviaries in zoos all the time, it prevents unauthorized birdy escapes.
Make sure to build your coop to withstand the weather extremes for your area--make
heating or cooling arrangements if your climate requires. Chickens are tough, but
after all are still birds, and birds are delicate and easily injured. Chickens can
get too overheated and die, so in hot areas a mister system, water bottles that have
been frozen and then placed in the run as a cool spot or just plain old YOU with
a garden hose all work great to cool them off. If you hang old burlap sacks at chicken
level on the wire sides of the coop or run and hose them down, the birds are cooled
by evaporative cooling. In our hot southern California summers, I would go out every
two hours at MOST (more often if it is really hot) and hose off the plants, ground--wherever
the chickens like to hang out in the shade--and using a light, gentle spray, the
chickens themselves. It won't make you popular but it keeps them alive. On a hot
day, if a chicken is standing with it's feathers slicked down, wings held open and
panting, its overheated and needs to be cooled off NOW. I just put a pressure nozzle
adjusted to a nice spray on my hose and mist everyone off really well. In cold weather
areas some chicken owners install a light bulb that they leave on to help ward off
too-cold temps. You can also insulate your coop, eliminate drafts–but not ventilation–and
use a barn heater in really cold temperatures. Chickens with large combs and wattles,
such as Leghorns, can sometimes suffer frostbite in freezing temperatures. You can
either plan ahead and only have birds with pea or rose combs, or apply a thin layer
of Vaseline (petroleum jelly) daily to the birds' comb and wattles to help insulate
them from the cold.
Adequate roosts should be placed--we use squared off 2 x 2 poles that we have sanded
lightly to remove splinters and round off the edges a bit for comfort for all our
birds, both standard and bantams. When a bird sleeps, their natural foot position
is closed–this is why they clamp onto roosts and perches while they sleep and don’t
fall off. Provide plenty of roosting space to lessen bedtime squabbles over who
sleeps where. Your chickens will maintain the pecking order at roosting time and
it will dictate who sleeps next to whom. You can use a ladder-type of roost or a
single level, or several roosts scattered in various places.
If it gets very cold, consider having a single roost area where the birds have to
huddle together, it will help eliminate single birds freezing to death or getting
frostbitten. Your birds will instinctively want to go to the highest point to roost,
so the upper roosts may be squabbled over. To eliminate this particular sticking
point, we use a single level roost with 4-5 long roost poles, it looks more like
the seat of a park bench. A ladder leading up to the roosts is a great help to injured
or older birds who have trouble jumping up to the roosts, and can help curb foot
troubles such as Bumblefoot, which in large, heavy chickens is sometimes caused by
hard impacts to the foot pad–in other words, landing hard after jumping down from
a high roost.
Nests should also be plentiful, provide a nice darkened hidey-hole type feeling and
have an adequate layer of nesting material such as straw, and be large enough to
accommodate at least two hens at once. Why two? Well, because hens LOVE to cram
into a nest at the same time to lay eggs, the more the merrier. When I say ‘at least
two’ I’m being conservative.
Because a LOT of the time they’ll do this–this is FIVE hens in one nest box:
To make matters worse, your laying hens think broodies are just fine and dandy and
will helpfully ALSO cram in there to lay their eggs so that the broods can hatch
them. Problems, is, the broods refuse to vacate the nest boxes while the laying
hens are in there, so you end up with a situation like the one above. In the picture
above, only the tiny black Silkie hen all the way in the back is laying an egg, the
rest of the girls in this shot were broody. Now mind you, I had SIX identical nest
boxes–but no, only THIS ONE would do.
I recently spoke to someone whose hens refused to lay in the nest boxes--until she
added another inch of straw to them! A good nest will reduce the chances of your
hens 'laying away'--that is, finding or creating their own nest elsewhere. If your
hens are fighting over certain nests, create a few more spaced away from each other,
that way the bullies can't be everywhere at once to guard them all.
I like wooden nest boxes, built with about a 3 inch lip on the front to help contain
nesting material–hens tend to fuss and kick around in a nest, making the perfect
well for eggs. The lip also helps keep eggs from rolling out. In addition to making
my nests nice and deep front to back, I like to hang a curtain of what is called
‘shade cloth’ or the front of the boxes, with a slightly V-shaped slit cut up the
center so the hens can come and go as they please. The curtain provides that extra
‘hidey-hole’ quality and privacy that hens love, the shade cloth is a large weave,
heavy-duty woven plastic material that lasts for years and withstands use by chickens
very well.
Heck, even roosters LOVE to get in on nesting. The roos will climb in, snuggle around
in the nest and chuckle and burble charmingly to attract the hens. This makes the
hens nuts and they eagerly climb right in there with him.
In the photos here Weedcat, my Giant Cochin rooster, called in two other hens–Bug
the Americaunas and Kiev, a gray Giant Cochin–into the next box he was already in.
We already knew that chickens love to do this, so we planned ahead and built these
nest boxes big!
It got to be like telephone booth stuffing after a while. Here is another Giant
Cochin hen, seen here waiting until her sister had stuffed her fluffy butt into the
nest. They successfully stuffed 4 large chickens into one nest box.
Quarantine, Broody Hen Pens And Injured Bird Pens
It's a REALLY good idea to have at least one separate, small enclosure for sick or
injured birds, at the very least. Because sooner of later you'll have one, at the
most inconvenient time possible. It's best to build it so the bird can remain in
it 24/7, so it needs to be secure at night. Anything other than a contagious or quarantined
bird can have a separate run built right into your existing coop or run, you can
skip the burying wire step since it will already be inside your secure coop/run.
This is great for injured birds and broody mamas with chicks, that way they are
around the flock but safe from bullies. Any pens should be complete with a nest box
and a roost or two, although roosts that can be removed are a good idea in case you
have an injured bird that is restricted from roosting.
Sick birds or new birds to your flock that you are quarantining are another matter.
You need to be prepared for this and be ready to either bring them into your house
or garage, or build them a secure pen AWAY from your flock and where your flock cannot
get near them in case they might catch whatever illness your sick bird has. Your
quarantine/sick pen MUST be secure, complete with buried wire.
Cleaning And Sanitizing The Coop
One handy tool for keeping your coop, roosts, nest boxes and food-water containers
clean, disinfected and practically mite and pest free is a hand-held steam cleaner.
I use one made by Scunci, pictured here. Below is a link to their site, which provides
more info. I have no affiliation with Scunci in any way, I just use the product and
it works great, especially as a pesticide-free and organic way of killing mites!
Pests can't develop a resistance to 'death by heat' like they can to pesticides,
so this is a great option. Needless to say, DO NOT USE THIS ON YOUR BIRDS, IT WILL
GREATLY HARM OR KILL THEM! Use it on the coop, living quarters and emptied food and
water containers only, please. Also, ONLY use water in the cleaner, never any chemicals
or anything else--you don't want to risk an explosion or aerosolizing harmful chemicals
for you and your animals to breathe. Follow the manufacturer's directions to the
letter and stay safe.
URL: http://www.scunci-steam-cleaner.com/
When I use my cleaner I fill it as directed--be respectful of steam, steam burns
HURT and are serious, and keep the cleaner AWAY from children and animals. Wear a
mask when using it to avoid breathing in vaporized chicken poop and dirt. The outside
of the cleaner does get warm, so use care. This little cleaner is very portable and
comes with a storage bag, several nozzles, a brass brush or two and a flexible hose.
It's great for softening and blasting off dried chicken poop (which normally has
the consistency of concrete) and getting deep into the nooks and crannies of the
roosts and nests. If you use it on food and water containers, empty them out and
scrub them off first--you must remove any debris such as poop, algae, etc. before
the steam can do it's job. If you are trying to disinfect an area, no matter WHAT
type of disinfecting tool or chemical you are using, chicken poop MUST be removed
in order to get the area under it clean, otherwise you are wasting your time. Chicken
poop traps and harbors mite and worm eggs and adults. The combination of the steam
cleaner and a scraper where needed is an unbeatable team when it comes to coop cleaning.
Since this cleaner uses steam, it doesn't badly soak the wood and things dry out
quickly.
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Despite that very fun little mental image you have, a chicken tractor is NOT a miniature
John Deere with a big rooster at the wheel.
A chicken tractor is a small, low, long enclosed chicken run designed to hold anywhere
from 2-7 (on average) chickens. It is made of a sturdy wire and has an open bottom,
and can be dragged from one spot to another in the yard so that the chickens can
scratch and dig, eat bugs, fertilize and weed different patches of ground--hence
the 'tractor'. Tractors are lightweight so that even women can move them, and some
have small, wooden-sided coops and nest boxes attached (with solid bottoms), and
even wheels on the bottom to facilitate moving them.
Make sure to keep your chicks VERY well protected in the tractor, predators are VERY
patient and clever about getting a chicken dinner, especially at night. Chicken tractors,
by design, are meant to be daytime runs ONLY and are NOT secure enough to withstand
an attack by a predator. Predators are adept at tunneling under wire and reaching
through it, or just plain ripping through things like chicken wire, which is NOT
designing to keep chickens safe. Chicken wire is designed to keep chickens out of
gardens, and is NOT strong enough to protect your birds from any predator. To make
matters worse, chicken wire quickly becomes brittle when exposed to the elements.
So if you build your own chicken tractor, PLEASE use only the best and sturdiest
materials--hardware cloth for example and NOT chicken wire--and always securely coop
your birds from dusk to dawn. The wooden, solid-side and bottom coops are also there
because your birds need to be IN THERE when you move the tractor. This is because
you generally lift one edge of the tractor to drag it along, and chickens still in
the run can either escape or get caught and injured under the moving edge of the
tractor. Remember The Chicken Mantra?
If you build your tractor, one thing to take into consideration is that at some point,
it is very likely you will need to get YOURSELF into the tractor to go after a trapped,
injured or sick bird. Leave yourself some crawling room. It's also another reason
to have tame birds that are accustomed to being picked up and held or petted. If
you are planning to raise chicks--and don't fool yourself, you WILL, once you fall
in love with your chickens--make sure to include in your design a way to partition
off mama and the new chicks so they don't get attacked by the other birds. There
is no way to tell from one hatch to the next if this will happen, but in a small
space like a tractor there is less room for mom and the kids to escape, so plan ahead.
Either that or build a separate tractor for the broody and chicks to be SURE they
are safe. A separate area AWAY from the flock is also a good idea to have handy for
sick or injured birds, which, inconsiderately enough, they never schedule in advance.
So be ready.
There are plenty of sites and plans online for chicken tractors, you can also search
on 'permaculture' and 'hoophouses' for more results and how-to's, and searching Google
Images returns loads of great pictures and plans. There are several sites with terrific
chicken tractors for sale.
Great article not only on chicken coops and tractors, but on people in urban areas
keeping a few hens:
URL: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/pacificnw/2002/0120/cover.html
The Omlet site, they sell pre-fab chicken tractors called Eglus (they even come with
two hens!), give the site a read, it's HIGHLY entertaining and fun, and the Eglu
design is fantastic:
URL: http://www.omlet.co.uk/homepage/homepage.php
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