Chickens are territorial. They rarely roam far during the day, and they come back at night to roost in a familiar place. In ancient times, that place would have been a tree. Even some modern chickens prefer to roost in trees, but trees give them no protection from inclement weather or from owls and other predators. For that reason, chickens should be provided with protective housing and encouraged to sleep there at night.
The type of housing you provide will be influenced to a great extent by suitable existing facilities, available space, and the amount of time you wish to devote to maintenance. Portable housing is ideal for chickens, because they are periodically moved to new ground, either in the garden or out in a pasture, but such a system works only if you are willing to take time to do the moving. An alternative is to divide the area around a stationary building into several separate yards and rotate the chickens among them to give vegetation a chance to re-grow.
To rotate range without moving the housing, divide the
yard around the coop with fencing. Install a chicken-sized door leading
from the coop to each of the small lots. Keep the doors to the lots that
aren’t being used closed.
Because of the keeper’s time and space constraints, the usual backyard setup involves a small stationary coop surrounded by a fenced yard. In short order, the chickens eat all the vegetation in the yard, which then develops a hard-packed barren surface. Provided such a yard is clean and dry, the chief disadvantage to such a situation is that the chickens have no access to forage and all their feed must be brought to them.
Coop Location and Design
The first thing to do before deciding where to house your chickens is to check your local zoning regulations. Since chickens generate a certain amount of odor, dust, and noise, laws may pertain to how far your chickens must be from your dwelling or property line. The ideal spot for a coop is on a hill or slope that offers good drainage in rainy weather.
Next, look around to see if you have a structure that might readily be convened into a chicken house, such as a playhouse the children have outgrown, an unused toolshed or other outbuilding, or a camper shell from a pickup truck.
You may prefer to buy a ready-made toolshed or to design and build your coop from scratch, making it as plain or as fancy as your heart desires. If you live in a mild climate, or if you raise an annual batch of broilers that won’t be around all year, you need only a rudimentary shelter as protection from wind and rain. In a harsh climate where chickens are kept year-round, housing must be insulated and heated to keep combs and wattles from freezing.
The more room chickens have, the happier and healthier they are. Crowding leads to stress that can cause chickens to eat each other’s feathers or flesh. Total room includes the coop and yard combined; the larger the yard, the less critical a large chicken house becomes. A coop measuring 8 feet by 12 feet is big enough for 30 regular-sized chickens or 50 bantams. For easy cleaning, the structure should be tall enough that you can stand inside without bumping your head.
The coop should have a door you can close and latch at night to protect your flock from roaming predators, and a few screened openings to provide ventilation when the door is shut. If you raise layers, you will need electricity so your hens have 14 hours of light during winter, when the days are short. Be sure the wiring is properly installed; hire an electrician if you are not experienced with wiring. It is not safe to run an extension cord from the house.
If you are interested in having a portable coop, these books will be helpful:
• Chicken Tractor — small garden units
• Pastured Poultry Profit$ — small commercial units
• Day Range Poultry — large commercial units
The Perch
A chicken’s natural inclination is to roost in a tree at night. To satisfy this instinct and encourage chickens to roost indoors, proper chicken housing is fitted with a perch. An ideal chicken perch is about 2 inches in diameter for large breeds, 1 inch for bantams. Allow 8 inches of perching space for each chicken.
An old unused ladder makes a dandy perch. You can buy dowels from the hard ware store, or use new lumber with the corners rounded off so the chickens can wrap their toes around it. Two things not to use as a perch are plastic and metal pipe, both of which are too smooth for chickens to grip well.
A ladder-style perch allows chickens to hap up to a high
roasting spot without much trouble.
Three nests will accommodate 12 hens.
When pullets first start to lay, leaving an egg in each nest helps teach them what the nests are for. You don’t have to use real eggs; use plastic or wooden ones from a poultry supply catalog or hobby shop.
Litter
Nesting material, also called bedding or litter, keeps eggs clean. Litter may consist of wood shavings, wood chips, sawdust, rice hulls, peanut hulls, chopped straw, soft hay, ground-up corncobs, shredded paper, or any other soft, absorbent material. Place 3 to 4 inches of litter in each nest.
Occasionally an egg will break, and sometimes a hen will leave her droppings in a nest, creating quite a mess. A handy way to clean things up is to keep a supply of squares cut from a cardboard box to line your nests. When you clean out a nest and remove the old cardboard, the nest floor underneath it will be clean. Put down a new piece of cardboard before adding fresh nesting material.
A thick layer of the same litter spread on the floor of your coop will help keep your chickens clean and healthy. If you don’t use litter, manure will collect on the floor, particularly beneath the perches, and will smelt unpleasant and attract flies. When you use litter, your chickens will scratch in it and stir in the manure.
Start with a layer of litter at least 4 inches deep. If the litter around the doorway or under the perch gets packed down, break it up with a shovel and rake. If any litter gets wet from a leaky waterer or poor drainage, remove the wet patch and replace it with dry litter. Be sure to fix the problem that caused the litter to get wet.
A chicken coop that smells like manure or has the pungent odor of ammonia is mismanaged. These problems are easily avoided by keeping the litter dry, adding fresh litter as needed to absorb droppings, and periodically replacing the old litter with a fresh batch.
A Chicken Fence
Chickens enjoy being in sunlight and fresh air. A fence keeps them from straying and protects them from dogs and other predators. The fence should be at least 4 feet high, or higher if you keep one of the lightweight breeds that tends to fly.
The best kind offence for chickens is a wire mesh fence with small openings.
Chicken wire, also called poultry netting, has 1-inch-wide openings woven in a honeycomb pattern. It makes a super chicken fence but doesn’t hold up over the years.
A more durable fence is yard-and-garden wire with 1-inch spaces toward the bottom and wider spaces toward the top. The small openings at the bottom keep chickens from slipping out and small predators from getting in.
To further protect your chickens from predators, string electrified wire along the top and the outside bottom of your fence. Check first to make sure local regulations allow electric fence in your area.
If you plan to keep newly hatched chicks inside the fence, they will slip through 1-inch openings. Get a roll of 12-inch-wide aviary netting, which looks like chicken wire but has ½-inch openings. Fasten the aviary netting tightly along the bottom of your fence.
Woven-wire fencing is ideal for chicken yards; it is
sturdy enough to protect against predators, is finely meshed to keep chickens
from slipping outside, and offers a great view of the chicken yard culture.
Keeping House
How often a chicken coop needs to be cleaned depends on how big it is in relation to the number of chickens it houses, how well-kept the litter is, and the prevalence of disease. A properly maintained coop housing a healthy flock should not have to be cleaned more often than once a year.
The best time to clean a coop is on a warm, dry spring day. Wear a dust mask, or tie a bandanna over your nose and mouth, so you won’t inhale the fine dust you’ll be stirring up.
First, remove all fixtures, feeders, waterers, perches, and nests. Shovel out the used litter. With a hoe, scrape droppings from the perches, walls, and nests. Use an old broom to brush dust and cobwebs from the walls, especially in corners and cracks. If a source of electricity is nearby, this job is better handled with a shop vacuum.
Mix 2 tablespoons of chlorine bleach into 2 gallons of boiling water. Use an old broom to scrub the inside of the coop with the bleach-water. Leave the doors and windows open so the coop will dry fast. While the building is drying, scrub all the items you removed with fresh bleach-water and leave them in the sun to dry. When the structure and fixtures are dry, replace the fixtures and add fresh litter and nesting material.
While you are at it, check around outside and pick up any junk that may be lying around, including feed-bag strings and bits of broken glass that your chickens might be tempted to eat. Remove any scrap lumber or rolls of fencing that provide hiding places for rodents and snakes, and get rid of old tires and other items that can accumulate water where pesky insects might breed.
Next: Feeding Chickens
Prev.: Handling Chickens