Chickens on raised beds.

[Jimmy]

Hello, toying with the idea of keeping a few chickens.
My veg plot has raised beds
Three beds 120" by 55"
Two beds 100" by 40"

I was thinking of making a chicken wire enclosure to cover a 100" by 40" bed and move it around every year.

And then make a separate coop to stand in the enclosure.

Would this arrangement be viable for say 3 chickens ?

Thanks
Jimmy

[Small pumpkin]

Hi Jimmy
Personally I would say not enough space. Also they would remove a considerable amount of you raised bed onto your paths, lawn, next raised bed ( basically anywhere you don't want the contents of your raised bed to be ) in there search for bug,worms, seed. And you would have to move them from bed to bed a lot more frequently than once a year, more like once a month.
Sorry

( I may of course misunderstood your measurements, I'm better with metric , but not much )

[Small pumpkin]

Just re calculated. That's ok for 3 chickens, just ( again my personal opinion, but you would be well above the legal requirements ), but they would still make a lot of mess, and you really wouldn't want them on your raised bed in winter.

[veggiechicken]

Just to confirm that your measurements are inches not feet?
100" x 40" = 8'4" x 3'4" = 2.5 m x 1.01m
Doesn't leave much room for a coop + feeder + water.
is this for your garden or allotment Jimmy?

[Snadger]

You need a chicken tractor but you need more beds to rotate them on!

[Bigmallly]

If you want inspiration, check out this guy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHcL2fFQO54

[Jimmy]

Thanks for the advise , measurements in inches.
Jimmy

[Nicos]

I seem to recall ( you best check first though) that the smallest recommended space per bird is one square yard / metre of floor space?

From your measurements you have enough for 2 normal sized birds.
You might get away with 3 banties if you are thinking of a double decker type of run?

Personally I really like banties as they tend to lay more than other chooks throughout the winter.

It's not an ideal size, but doable with banties and careful designing .

Out of interest.....I would imagine that any moveable chook run is more suseptable to a foxattack

[Jimmy]

Well I have seen foxes around our estate.
Design in feasibility stage, so that's another consideration !
Thanks
Jimmy

[Snadger]

I seem to recall ( you best check first though) that the smallest recommended space per bird is one square yard / metre of floor space?

From your measurements you have enough for 2 normal sized birds.
You might get away with 3 banties if you are thinking of a double decker type of run?

Personally I really like banties as they tend to lay more than other chooks throughout the winter.

It's not an ideal size, but doable with banties and careful designing .

Out of interest.....I would imagine that any moveable chook run is more suseptable to a foxattack

Banties have the same egg yolk size as a large fowl chook so the yolk to white ratio is better. Moveable runs can be quite easily fox proofed by putting large mesh on the floor. Reinforcement mesh used for concrete is strong, stable and has a large mesh.