Newbie want to keep chickens

Hi Jim, and welcome.
Gardens and chooks ......................... if you want a "nice" garden, don't let your chooks on it I'm afraid. You can never guarantee that they won't eat the things you don't want them to, and yes, they will scratch up your lawn. Having said that, 8' x 10' would be ok for 4 chooks, even 6, and you might want to let them roam around free range for a little while at times when you're there to supervise.

What sort of chickens are you thinking of? I'm all for ex-battery for a number of reasons:

1. You give them the opportunity to experience freedom for the first time in their lives
2. They're already vaccinated so you don't have that to worry about
3. They're already laying eggs so you don't have to wait for them to "grow up"
4. It's wonderful to see them change from tatty, almost "oven-ready" birds into beautiful and friendly girls

There's obviously many more reasons, and I'm sure other grapes will help you to make your choice.

Best of luck, and if/when you need more help, this is the place to find it

Thanks for the advice, so if i fenced off an area in the garden, 8' x 10', with the fence around 6' high, would I still need to cover the roof area wire to keep foxes out, or would 6' fence be enough?

Also what would be best to go on the ground in this area, at the moment it's a rock & compacted soil.

Should I leave it like this, concrete it, slab it, or something else??

As regards to type of chooks, not thought that far ahead yet, was just going to see what they had local, my wife likes the idea of getting them as chics

If the garden is accessible by foxes, then you do need to fox-proof somehow. As for the ground area, I'd spread some hemcore over it, this absorbs the waste and cuts down on any smells. When the chickens are big enough to dig, loosen a bit of the soil so they can search for grubs, worms etc and make themselves a dust bath too.

Greatminds think alike!

Hi Jim

I have just been online looking for ideas for hen house designs and found this site.

Like you I am new to keeping hens, though I have had some recent practice looking after 16 girls owned by my sons in-laws whilst visiting them recently.

Hope to be up and running before winter sets in, am finding this site a great source of information.

My cheif worry is local felines and how to keep them at bay.

Good luck!

Jim

I'm as new as you are, still making the run and not getting my ex-bat girls until late Sept. I think you need to make sure you bury the wire for the run a good foot or so down in the earth, so foxes can't dig underneath it and get in that way

want to keep chickens

Hi Jimster, we too thought about raising chicks,built what I thought was a nice hen house (neighbours think its a beach hut) and a detatchable run. We bit the bullet and went for 3 ex-batts and a pol Speckeldy (given to us) we`ve had the girls for 3 weeks now, getting 2 eggs per day and on occaisions 3. We allow them to free range for 1-1.5 hour per day, move the house and run every other day, grass is still ok, flower beds take a hammering with their digging and dust bathing the plants seem ok,(mainly herbaceous shrubs and ground cover) Feeding them a mix of Breeders and Growers pellets since we weened them off mash (better diet) extra calciun by the way of crushed oyster shell, the results have been amazing -the ex-batts are re growing their feasthers(not skin heads any more) I covered the feeding station at the end of the run to stop rain getting into their food and wild bird droppings going into their water, this also gives them a refuge from the very wet weather we`ve been getting also acts as a sun shade, should the summer return lol. I wish we had done it many years ago. alan

Hi, Jimster, and welcome! I'm a relative newcomer to chicken-keeping (just over two years), and already my garden would seem lonely and empty without them

EU guidelines for free-range hens are 1 sq m per bird; you have about 8 there, so it would be plenty for 4 hens. Four birds would probably be enough unless you have a large, egg-loving family - an egg-laying hybrid lays around 6 eggs a week on average, so that's two dozen a week!

In a word, yes! They love to dig up soil, gravel and any other loose material in search of worms, slugs and other yummy treats

If your garden is mainly grass, trees and shrubs, you should be OK, but if you like bedding plants and other tender stuff, it will get trashed. Ditto anything edible - my raised beds are all protected by bird-netting, or I'd have no home-grown salad. They will jump onto containers as well, and have a dig in those!

It depends on the size of lawn. A run big enough for four hens would have to be quite big.

Definitely roof it, because foxes will climb an 8' fence if there's tasty prey on the other side. Also either bury the mesh (as others have suggested) or have a "skirt" that spreads 6-12 inches outwards, since foxes dig right next to a fence. Finally, please do use stout weldmesh, not chicken wire, as foxes can bite through the latter - chicken wire is for keeping chickens in their run (or out of your vegetable patch!)

Note that a solid roof will also make your run DEFRA-compliant, in the unhappy event that there's a bird flu outbreak in your area.

Some good examples:

Eglu Cube

Traditional run

Hope this helps!

What a fantastic response Eyren!! Now could you read my post and do the same standard of response for moi!

Cheeky or what??

I don't know about Jimster, but it definitely helped me!

Thanks!

Thanks for a the great advice, I've started to build my coup, I'll post some pictures once compleated.

I was planning on putting the coup on legs to give them some shelter under it during the wet weather, is 18" tall enough??

Also how high inside the coup should there perch be?

also, how high should the nest area be about the ground in the coup?

Thanks again for all the advice.

Cheers

Jim

ps my friend is giving me some hens from his neighbour, (he said they were speckies?) only getting two to start off with.

I am newby too!!

hi jimster

I am also preparing for chickens. have ordered house and run and await for them to arrive. I have a coop/run that is 6 and half feet long by 3 and half feet high by two and a half foot wide. I am also sectioning a part of my garden off and fencing so they can have some extra space along with that I also plan to let them free range whenever i am out there to supervise so they get plenty of run. I also am a lover of my garden and do not want it ruined!! but would love to have chickens, so hopefully we can have best of both worlds.

angelat

I would make it 2 feet off the ground for full-sized hens - that's the height of the coop table sold by Aviaries4U (in my link). Chickens are taller than you think!

The nestbox can be on the floor of a raised coop - in my old ark the nestboxes were raised about an inch above the floor, presumably for ventilation/drainage. As long as the nestbox doesn't sit in a puddle and rot (assuming it's wooden), it should be OK.

Perches are usually placed higher than the nest box, but around 12" up (give or take up to six inches) should be OK, I think. My bantams can get higher than that, but they are lighter than big hens.

He probably means Speckledies - they are nice hens, white with black barred/spotted feathers. I had a Speckledy for a couple of years before I changed over to all bantams

Once again, thanks for all your all your advice.

Some more questions, for two choocs, how long does the perch need to be, and how close can the perch go to the back of the coup, (is 6" too close??)

I was planning on making the door around 20cm wide, and 30cm tall, is this about right??

And final question (for today anyway) the nest box is currently 60cm wide and 30cm deep, should I partition this off to make two smaller boxes, or leave it 'openplan'

Thanks

Jim

Here is a photo of my coup so far.

I would make it a bit further away, so there's room for their bums

Sounds plenty big enough - the one on my ark was tiny!

Definitely partition it - they like a bit of privacy when laying! My ark came with two shallow boxes, one of which had a high side as a divider.

Wow, that's very smart - lucky girls!

Thanks all for your help, I have compleated my coup, and I've had my chickens, (4 in total) for a few weeks and all is going well.






I let them run around the garden when I'm home, they seam to love it.

I've not clipped there wings yet, but I don't want them to escape. I have been told if there happy, they will not try to escape is this true?