Hen house ??

My friend has an eglu and I have ordinary wooden coop,hers is much easier to clean but mine looks like a proper chook house, also she gets lots of broken eggs cos they fall through the wooden slats, hers acn move around the garden though and mine cant,personal preference i think and i think they very small,apologies to all who have eglus

My friend says the eglu tends to get hot in summer. The best hen house we have is a converted shed from b&q! Cheap as chips!!

I like the look of the eglu but on a personal level I think they look really small.

Ideal for 2 or 3 chooks, but if you got 12m x 3m of room for them to free range in, i would go for a converted shed or conventional house.

Wow! 12m x 3m?? I've only read a couple of books. I don't know squat! So! Disregarding what I've read for the moment - Question!

2/3 birds. How much space is 'enough'?

I don't want to be overly restrictive, but I don't want my garden over run either.

Well... My run is 12ft by 3ft and 4ft high. Take 2ft x 6ft out of a corner and that is my hen house (an old rabbit hutch). Not ideal but it does the job. The girl's get to free range around the garden but I have 11 girl's in there and it's not as crowded as I first thought it might be. None of them are ever in the same place at the same time during the day, so it works kinda well.

However the house can get a little bit cramped in the night, but they snuggle up to each other anyway.
I'm working on adding another house or just a bigger one, haven't decided yet.
But that will add another 6ft to the 12ft making it 18ft by 3ft wide and keeping with the 4ft high.

I have seen houses and runs that supposedly house 4-6 birds, and i wouldn't say they were big enough but each to their own.

A friend of mine has a section in their garden fenced off for their 4 girls which is 3m x 4m and 6ft high fencing with no roof netting, but they also have their rabbit hutch (with rabbit) inside those dimensions too.

The way I see it, if they have enough room to spread their wings then it's big enough, if not then it's too small. But that is a personal opinion.

Get a shed and save your cash!

hi wayne
ive experience of both - and have an eglu + run + fenced off part of garden
(flexible battery operated|).
Currently i have 5 girls in the eglu - only meant to have 4 but there was a spare ex bat and i couldnt help myself.
As they are in the eglu nightime only and I find even with 3 they all snuggle
together - it is cosy but not squashed. They seem to take turns when laying in the nest box - ive never had the problem with eggs on the roosting bars - a golfball in the nest box initially seemed to do the trick.

Mine are rarely shut into the eglu run - only when i know im going go be away for long long time - the fencing seems to do the trick, but occassionally i do get the odd escapee. I have netting around my raised veg beds on anything I dont want them to have - i find the flower borders rarely get messed - they are well established quite tightly packed with plants - occassionaly something gets squished but soon comes back - they dont seem to like the foliage to eat.

I didnt have the size/space to move the eglu and run around and so they have
destroyed all grass in their garden space - just bare soil now, so I also put down some straw which stops it getting too muddy in really wet weather. However as I let them free-range in other parts of garden they seem to get their fill of grass etc - and i supplement with other greens usually leftovers from our meals. Yolks are always sunny yellow!

I find it really easy to clean/empty of poo which all go in the compost. Had an
attack of redmite last autumn - and gave it a good clean and diatomed it twice - all gone within a few days. I dust with a bit of diatom every time I clean now.
So far no reoccurance but summer will tell. (By the way ive checked temp summer and winter and they are comfortable in both conditions)

We're pretty rural here, and touch wood no girls lost to foxes - however I am
constantly struggling with rats - they seem to burrow under the eglu and take
any pellets the girls spill - i keep on top by demolishing their burrow and filling with rocks etc - I have also used poison but am worried about the girls eating any as they scratch around.

Ive had my eglu for over 2 years and apart from a few scratches here and there it is still in excellent condition. If I had a bigger garden and more hens id definately go for a cube - and be able to sell my current eglu online and get a really good price for it.

Hope this helps
francesbean

Thanks everyone for your inputs great help!!
thanks once again
wayne

Hen house/Eglu

Hi Wayne, we are new to this too, just about a month ago we got our four chooks from Omlette, along with their Eglu cube. We had a run made for them, well secured and covered against the elements, the cube being quite large takes up about a third of the space, but the chickens can move around the whole area as it is raised, and they have plenty of space when roosting. We have had no problems with eggs through the plastic bars, and the snug nesting box would easily accommodate 2-3 birds at a time. I am really pleased with how easy it is to keep clean, the ground cover is soil, sand, fine wood chips and a top layer of Hemcore. The birds are looking good, and have been laying well. We let them have the run of the garden when home, they love a raised bed of soft compost to dust in, and apart from a few squashed young plants they haven't done too much damage. We don't have grass, but pebbles which give them plenty of leg exercise as they scratch away to get to any treats. So far we havent had any really hot weather, but the Eglu cube is well ventilated. More expensive compared with other traditional coops but its strong and well made. I think the smaller eglu classic would be too small. Hope this helps.

The Eglu might look nice if you have a friend called Dorothy! (That's a joke before everyone starts getting liberal!

Who really wants a Yellow/pink or Green thing made of of plastic which gets discoloured by the sun sitting in their garden? If you have Gnomes scatered about the garden and a Donkey planter, a couple of windmills and one of Wheel barrows that you put plants in then you probably would love the idea of a Yellow/Pink looking bin in the garden. They also cost a stupid amount of money and if you check out the Eglu forums their not actually FULLY FOX PROOF like they claim!

Get yourself a proper Chicken House/Coop they look much better or as suggested a shed which you can convert. Some of the wooden houses nowadays easy enough to keep clean... My opinion, the only good thing about the Eglu is no Red Mite.