Kimi BK
Songster
Three weeks ago we salvaged a neighbor's coop, which jump started our chicken-raising by at least six months -- we were planning to start next year (since we are still living in a camper...)
Thursday our 24 chicks arrived from Ideal Hatchery! (7 each Welsummer, Australorp, Silver-Laced Wyandotte straight run, and 3 Easter Egger pullets) They are currently living in a stock tank in our greenhouse. We'll probably split them between two bins before they are ready to go out to the coop. (We've had backyard chickens in the past, when we lived in Wisconsin, but only 5 at a time, and all hens.)
So now I'd like to sanity check our coop situation for these 24 kiddos.
I'm aware of the "4 square feet each in the coop, 10 square feet each in the run" guidance. Browsing around, I've also seen that this is more geared toward small flocks and depends on various factors. So I wanted to run our situation by y'all and see if you think we have an OK plan for these kiddos...
The inherited coop/run is
I look forward to any feedback!
Thursday our 24 chicks arrived from Ideal Hatchery! (7 each Welsummer, Australorp, Silver-Laced Wyandotte straight run, and 3 Easter Egger pullets) They are currently living in a stock tank in our greenhouse. We'll probably split them between two bins before they are ready to go out to the coop. (We've had backyard chickens in the past, when we lived in Wisconsin, but only 5 at a time, and all hens.)
So now I'd like to sanity check our coop situation for these 24 kiddos.
I'm aware of the "4 square feet each in the coop, 10 square feet each in the run" guidance. Browsing around, I've also seen that this is more geared toward small flocks and depends on various factors. So I wanted to run our situation by y'all and see if you think we have an OK plan for these kiddos...
The inherited coop/run is
- 7'x7' enclosed with 20 nest boxes, 15' of roost (5x3')
- well ventilated coop (3'x3' hardware cloth window with plastic sheeting over it for winter, full ventilation under gabled roof -- open all around with hardware cloth protection)
- walk-in coop with wooden floor
- chicken door from coop is always open to the run
- 7'x16' run fully enclosed with hardware cloth on sides & chicken wire on top under 2 flat panels of metal roof, a couple feet with wire only on top (no roof)
- run has another human door -- low ceiling, but walkable for me
- dirt floor in the run
- we will use a buried hardware-cloth skirt around the perimiter
- 20 nest boxes seems overkill for such a small coop... we plan to remove 10 of them
- with 1/2 the nest boxes gone we can lengthen the roosts to 25 ft total (5x5')
- we plan to start out using electric poultry fencing to allow us to flexibly create sort-of protected roaming areas during the day
- if the protection isn't sufficient (birds of prey are likely our main concern during the day, or possibly area ranch dogs) we can fence it and cover the fenced area with bird netting
- We'd likely let them out of the run mid-morning most days and back in at dusk
- if gone for a day we'd likely keep them confined to the run
- we'll probably do deep litter in the run, and either deep litter or pull-out roost trays in the coop
- we do plan to harvest roos (we think 3 of the welsummers are roos but that's all we know at this point) and we eventually want to raise birds, but that's all a subject for another post -- and I'm sure we'll need at least a bachelor coop and breeding pens or whatnot at that point -- but we're hoping this setup will work for 24 birds until spring, and then likely dwindling down to more like 10-18 layers
- high desert -- very dry, lots of piñon & juniper, scrubby grasses and shrubs, sandy in between -- NOT lush forage!
- intense sun
- Zone 6 for growing -- frosts from October until May, but the daily temperature swings are great. Daytime highs are usually 30-50-degrees higher than nighttime lows. Right now in mid-October we're seeing days in the 70s and nights in the high 30s, and out in the sun during the day is hot. Hottest-of-the-hot summer is only 100 degrees; coldest-of-the-cold can be 10-20 below zero once every few years, but it's unusual to have a straight week with highs below freezing
- snow doesn't usually stick around; maybe a couple/3 days straight on occasion
- 7200' elevation
I look forward to any feedback!