The Happy Hart Chicken Flock: Meet the Flockers

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So the coop situation.

As you might know, we got our chickens pretty abruptly. This left us little time to do any research or anything on coops. Hindsight is 20/20 they say - and that is so true. Looking back on it, we should have either just built a coop ourselves (which we are preparing to do) or sent the coop we bought back, because it was horrible. As in the only good thing about it is that it has a functional roof and three separate roosts.

It was sold via Rural King’s website, but I don’t blame Rural King for the failure of the coop because they weren’t the ones who manufactured it. This coop, named the Innovation Xtra Large Chicken Coop, came with split wood, random drill holes where screws didn’t go, pieces that weren’t on the instructions, and instructions that referenced pieces that didn’t exist. Nevertheless, we needed a home for the chickens, so the coop was assembled and placed. It has been three months since we bought that coop and it has already had a ramp rung and a door lock fall off, two of the doors warped with the first rainfall and take some serious muscling to lock into place, and no protected place for the chickens once winter comes.

There is a good nesting box area, and in front of it is a (supposedly, although ours doesn’t even fit it’s frame) removable waste tray that we kept our first flock in with a heat lamp for the first week since it was still kinda chilly out, but the only thing is, the space is left unprotected because there’s a large, wire door on the side of the waste tray that makes for easy cleaning, but no protection. We had to cover it with a towel to keep rain out because there’s no sliding panel to cover it.

Now, we were planning on maybe just trying to renovate the coop to make it better and more winter-hardy, but then the tragedy happened and all the sudden our flock doubled in size when four chickens were lost and 10 were added, we went from 6 to 12 real fast without thought of the coop, which is only made for up to 6 chickens. This problem became apparent very fast as I realized our big girls weren’t done growing and there would not be enough roosting space, even with three different locations.

So, spurred on by our recent purchase of a new, completely enclosed run, I started researching easy coop plans and finally came across one called the Pallet Palace from this website! Work on it will commence as soon as we acquire the pallets and wall material because we want to get it done before the little girls come out into the enclosure full-time.

Winter here is always a trip because a few years ago, we had single-digit temps all season but no snow, then we had a really snowy winter, and this past one was our mildest yet with a brief period of freezing temperatures. But there’s always that one period and that’s when our girls will need a coop with protection, not a flimsy towel covering a flimsy coop.

 

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And on a completely different note, Duchess has decided to become a little snot and peck at your fingers if you try to take her out of the bin. I sincerely hope this behavior does not continue into adulthood.

 

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So many updates! But I had to, since Duchess doesn’t only peck at me - they’ve been outside doing some integration time and she ran to the side of the bin to peck at Nancy through the plastic! Nancy pecked back, of course, but I’ll definitely be curious to see how their relationship develops when they’re finally integrated as one flock. I’m wondering now if she’s just convinced she’s the matriarch or if maybe “she” is another “he” (not that I’d be opposed to a rooster for our flock), because that’s definitely happened before even if she was sold as a sexed pullet.

 

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Not much happened today in the realm of the chickens. I didn’t get to spend as much time as I wanted with them, but I temporarily housed the chicks in the horse barn while I cleaned their bin and we changed the layout so that their water is now hanging.

And unfortunately, we had to switch tactics with the new coop because we don’t think we’ll be able to get it done in time, so we’re instead ordering a shed and planning on insulating it and building the roosts and nest boxes in there, so fingers crossed that becomes a reality!

 

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I lied! After the last post, we got some excitement when we let ALL the girls out for supervised free range time. I was apprehensive to how Nancy would react, but they did really well! It was the Little Girls first time outside and they were loving it. They stayed in their separate groups for the most part, but would sometimes mingle. The Little Girls even caught a couple of bugs!

Spike and Ducky are the sleepiest chicks ever, they will sleep wherever they are, and they did just that in the grass, it was hilarious!

It was a very successful night! My family was enjoying the chicken watching, the girls were enjoying the free range, the only ones who didn’t like it were the pups, who were quarantined in the house!

 

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Had to do the butt checks today. Chicks were less than enthused but small enough to handle, big girls were not enthused and did not hide that fact. I’ll have to have help to check again, more thoroughly. Nancy and Jo spent some time eating seeds and mealworms out of my hand today, which Jo doesn’t usually participate in. She’s definitely doing better, but my one-eyed wonder still has problems seeing her food without turning her head all the way to the right, so sometimes she misses but we love her anyways! Here’s my beautiful JoJo girl:

 

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I had to go away for the weekend and leave my chickens, and I miss them already! I got some quality time in with Nancy and Jo with some scratch grains, but have left it in my family’s hands to handle the chicks (such a tough job, I know). I don’t know how I’m going to cope when I go back to college in the fall, I’ll be getting chicken withdrawals!

 

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I came back yesterday after a mere three days to find my little chicks looking almost 2x the size they were when I left. I was too busy admiring them to get pics, but I’ll post some soon. Today, I went out to handle them, and Goose, Gammy, and Queenie have kinda warmed up to me, the four dark chicks have seemed to grow more wary of me, Maggie and Lucy remain the same, and Duchess acts like about to cut her head off. She created a little parkour course for herself when she jumped off my shoulder, flew 5 feet to the table and landed on a metal pot lid, ran the length of a piece of card ours and escaped back into the box through a very small gap. I was pretty impressed, if I do say so myself. Also, after only a week in their new home, we had to relocate them to an even BIGGER box, which now has a reinforced cardboard roost instead of a flimsy styrofoam one and more space for them to get bigger and grow their feathers out. Pics to come of the new digs. I’m hoping to get more integration/free range time with Jo and Nancy when the weather clears up.

 

[3KillerBs]

we’re instead ordering a shed and planning on insulating it

You can put your general location into your profile so that people can offer targeted advice, but as a general rule only people in Alaska, more northern areas of Canada, and like places need an insulated chicken coop because the birds are, after all, already wearing down coats.

What they need most is ventilation to keep them dry.

There are threads for the US states and for various countries where you can get local advice for local conditions.


BTW, I love both JoJo's fluffy beard and her fighting spirit to live through everything.

 

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You can put your general location into your profile so that people can offer targeted advice, but as a general rule only people in Alaska, more northern areas of Canada, and like places need an insulated chicken coop because the birds are, after all, already wearing down coats.

What they need most is ventilation to keep them dry.

There are threads for the US states and for various countries where you can get local advice for local conditions.


BTW, I love both JoJo's fluffy beard and her fighting spirit to live through everything.

Yeah, we knew the walls would protect them from the worst of the elements, but we’re later the inside with plywood mainly to attach the roosts and nesting boxes to, but if it gives them some more warmth and protection from predators, I guess far be it from us complaining! Thank you for your advice though, I’ll definitely need it during the winter since we’ve never had chickens before!