New chicken questions

Boomer0013

Hatching
5 Years
Oct 20, 2014
2
0
7
Howdy everyone!

Looking for your expert advice to some specific question from a new BYC owner. Please excuse me if the questions are basic...

1. Our chickens are 7 months old. Batam. We have 2 hens and only one egg. Am I doing something wrong or do I just need patience. The chicken pen is a 10 x 10 square with one of those hen houses I bought at murdochs. Straw is on the inside of the hen house.
2. We live in Colorado so it's about to start getting cold. As I said, we have a red hen house bought at murdochs...it has a screened outer area and an opening to a covered area. Each night the sit in the outer area when I come to close them in. Will they go in the more covered area if the get cold or do I need to put them in there?
3. Heating..I only have heat lamps from when they were little. I am thinking of putting it on a timer and let it run for 20 minutes an hour......20 minutes because I am worried that it is dangerousness and will get very hot. What is another alternative? Or am I thinking about it the right way?
4. There is a box on the side where they are supposed lay their eggs...every time I put some straw in there, they push it down to the floor. I guess they will lay eggs wherever they want?

Thanks for your help, I'll take any advice you may have....

Boomer
 
:welcome

Hello Boomer you are doing a lovely job with your hens.
I recommend just to wait and see if your hen starts to lay.My chickens always scratch nesting material out of their nests.I think your lamp idea sounds wonderful and your hens will most likely start to load up once it gets cold but I would still check I've thought that before and had hens get soaked through a drential down pour and almost freeze.Once they warm up to the coop after however long they take to get used to liking they'll load up on their own.I hope I was helpful :)
 
I would strongly advise against any heat lamps in the coop...for many different reasons, but mostly for fire safety.
Heating your coop does the birds no favors, they need to acclimate to the cold as it comes on in the fall and if you use heat and the power goes out, they will suffer....you may end up with chickens in the house.

Birds are wearing feather coats, they will be fine in cold weather as long as they are dry and out of any direct drafts on the roost. Lots of ventilation without strong drafts is key and can be tricky. There's a link to a great article in my signature down below this post.

Do some research on cold weather...here's a pretty good thread to start with.


Is this the coop you have? You might need to add some wood to the front of the nests to lessen the amount of straw being scratched out of the nests, but new layers will mess nest bedding up a lot until they get the hang of laying.

You might also need to add a roost that is higher than the nests so they don't sleep in the nests and fill them with night poops....can't see on the website what roosts are there.

If that is the coop you have, there's a thread about how folks have dealt with it's inadequacies that might give you some ideas.
 

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