I received the following e - mail last hebdomad :
Subject: Help with chickens
David ,
My name is [ K. L. ] and I inhabit in the [ mid - Florida ] arena , most recently I stumbled upon your YouTube site which then led me to your website . I exhaustively enjoyed your videos and blog mail that I have watch and read and would like to inquire you for some advice . Currently I have a small garden that is under construction to increase it to a 50′ x 25′ garden , which I enjoy working in and produce food for my married woman and I but I would wish to bestow some Gallus gallus to the par . I have never had chickens and really know little to nothing about what I need other than the hencoop has to be critter validation . I will definitely take critter trial impression because although I live in a locality , I also survive in the forest . I should also tell you that I ’m only seem to have egg right now so any advice on what type of chickens I necessitate would be groovy . I suppose fundamentally I need Chickens 101 . Lol . Any assistance or advice you could give me I would really appreciate it .
give thanks you and God Bless ,
K
Well … lots of questions there . Today I ’ve decide to pop out a short series of “ Chickens 101 ” spot to deal what I ’ve learn about these oh - so - useful backyard razz .
We ’ve kept chickens for years and have had plenty of job we discovered along the manner . When you remember you have it all cipher out , it ’s normally about time for something else to go incorrect .
Let ’s start with housing .
Chicken Tractors vs. Chicken Coops
1:Chicken tractors
I spend a lot of time on the internet search chickens before and after moving to the area . This made me think that Gallus gallus tractor were the best way to go .
My first poulet coop was a chicken tractor I designed as a 4′ x 4′ x 8′ rectangle . About six foot of its length was screened in with chicken wire and the last 2′ had space for the birds to nest at night and lay their egg .
It was made from solid imperativeness - do by wood with a metal roof , stained a plentiful chocolate-brown coloring … and it weigh a short ton .
I destine on keeping it in the yard of our rental house but even moving it there was a vast pain . It ended up in a former cousin ’s one thousand , then subsequently ended up being disassembled for parts .
FAIL
2: Chicken Coops
My 2nd chicken chicken coop design was a more standard involvement . We had an honest-to-god shed so I exchange that to a chicken henhouse over a weekend . We added nest boxes and nailed up some Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree limbs so they could roost . I also plant some pictures of Elvis the previous householder had left in the attic , so I hang those up for the birds . Chickens instinctively like Elvis .
We find oneself that the poulet took to roosting in the rafters of the shed , which was dangerous both for them and for us . When the door was opened in the dawn they ’d come crashing down like drunk vultures from eight human foot in the air , tearing towards the ignitor .
That was remedied by the addition of some quondam fencing over the rafters so they could no longer make their way up that gamey .
Around the coop doorway , we fence in a chicken campaign that was about 20 x 30′ in size and mostly shadow by an oak tree tree .
It was a nice place for chickens .
However , the raccoon went after and killed some of our birds despite our best efforts . If we forgot to shut out the birds in at dusk , some would be murdered in the nighttime .
That was a pain . It entail that if we wanted to go to dinner party with some friends or had an evening church building service , we needed to chase all the birds back into the cage and close it early .
Pro - tip : herd chickens is n’t easy in dress shoes
The stock coop purpose did keep the chickens safe as long as we exit the door , but they did foray the weed and grass in their running down to wad sand over a few month . Not peculiarly permaculture or well-disposed to the ground or the birds .
After a meter , I decided to remediate this by designing some new chicken tractors so I could put at least some of the birds to work in the gardens and the food woodland .
3: Chicken Tractors Again
This time I used lighter materials and made some simple triangular - topped chicken tractor from 2 x 2″ lumber and poulet wire . They did n’t take long to make and worked a lot better than my previous design . At 3′ x 8′ with about 4′ altitude in the midsection , they hold 6 - 8 Bronx cheer well .
I did n’t devil putting a true covered roost country in these . Instead , I staple old feed bags over one half of the tractor for rainwater and Sunday protection and just left the other side open .
Dragging them around was a chip of a pain , though . We invariably broke bollock ( the birds nested on the ground in this design ) and sometimes razz would get their legs pinched if we moved too quickly .
After a prison term , I get threadbare of these tractor , my independent chicken coop , the losses to raccoons and the provender bill … and we got rid of our chickens altogether .
For a while .
But I could n’t help it – I had to take them up again , and when I did , I go back to tractors . Shiny new tractor with polyvinyl chloride and honest wire . And I incur a new flock of healthy pretty birds with burnished eyes and flappy little wing .
And then the raccoons start remove them , usually one at a clip , but not every dark . Just here and there .
The worst Nox was when I had just raised a new turn of chickens in the brooder , get them bigger and stronger in a bathtub on the back porch , and then put them in a new poulet tractor .
Two Nox afterwards all of them were murdered by a racoon .
All 16 wench .
It was the risky wimp sidereal day ever and it led to me putting telegram on the bottom of all my chicken tractors .
That wired bottom was a infliction , however . The volaille would get their animal foot stuck in it – and it maintain them from digging up the dry land nicely and eating the smoke and weeds , which is one of the independent reasonableness I desire them in tractor to set out with .
So – what ’s the final resolution in the battle of poulet tractor vs. chicken coops ?
… stay tuned !
