I'm Terri and my husband is Alan. We're new to all of this, but I already have family and friends asking us (of all people) for advice on keeping chickens safe. I couldn't believe they were asking US! But I did this for my big sister, my bro-in-law and one of their friends. Thought I'd share with all y'all!
Edit: I stand corrected! Lol...my hardware cloth is actually 1/2", not 1/4". Sorry for that. I didn't belive it, so I went out and measured. Haha! I'm kinda hard-headed.
We started by ordering these types of kits for the permanent runs. They are pretty sturdy. They are aluminum and come with everything to put them together and enough poultry fencing (chicken wire) to wrap the entire thing and to go over the roof and door, but we did some things to shore them up and deter critters and birds of prey. (The small run above is unfinished but will attach to the big run once it’s done.)
We added tarps to keep them out of rain or extremely hot sun, but they also serve to help hide the birds from anything overhead. The white one to the right came with the kit and we had the shorter one already. You’ll want to supplement them with vitamin drops in a small waterer every few days so they get some much needed vitamin D3 and other things because they aren’t getting enough sun in there. It makes their egg shells much stronger. You don’t want thin shells that break when you gather them. That is another thing that is dangerous. Critters can smell them if they’re broken and sit around too long. Plus!! These birds were inside of eggs, themselves, just a few months ago and the inside of that egg was how they were nourished before they hatched, so they LOVE EGGS! If one breaks, and they get a chance to eat some of it, it will cause them to break and eat their eggs on purpose. That’s safety for your EGGS!
Now onto the coop…
So, the very last, last thing we did was put up a solar light that's motion activated so that anything that gets near the main door of the run, should be scared away.
Totally a precaution because even if something got in there during the night, the birds are locked up securely inside the coop. I just had to do it, though.
This is what the little coop looks like (below). It came with all the hardware cloth but we EXTRA stapled it everywhere and I put hardware cloth under it and secured it around every bottom rail, too. Me being a first time chicken mama was pretty tough on my husband. Lol. But he made it through it with me. AND they're around 22 weeks old now, so the littles should be laying soon. In the mean-time, a friend from church actually gave us two 18 month old BRs so we could have eggs right away! This little coop and run came in handy while integrating those girls with my babies. Just shut that pop door between until they got used to each other.
Well, that's our story! I hope you enjoyed reading this or maybe learned something that you didn't know already. The entire thing was a HUGE lesson for both of us!
Edit: I stand corrected! Lol...my hardware cloth is actually 1/2", not 1/4". Sorry for that. I didn't belive it, so I went out and measured. Haha! I'm kinda hard-headed.
We started by ordering these types of kits for the permanent runs. They are pretty sturdy. They are aluminum and come with everything to put them together and enough poultry fencing (chicken wire) to wrap the entire thing and to go over the roof and door, but we did some things to shore them up and deter critters and birds of prey. (The small run above is unfinished but will attach to the big run once it’s done.)
We added tarps to keep them out of rain or extremely hot sun, but they also serve to help hide the birds from anything overhead. The white one to the right came with the kit and we had the shorter one already. You’ll want to supplement them with vitamin drops in a small waterer every few days so they get some much needed vitamin D3 and other things because they aren’t getting enough sun in there. It makes their egg shells much stronger. You don’t want thin shells that break when you gather them. That is another thing that is dangerous. Critters can smell them if they’re broken and sit around too long. Plus!! These birds were inside of eggs, themselves, just a few months ago and the inside of that egg was how they were nourished before they hatched, so they LOVE EGGS! If one breaks, and they get a chance to eat some of it, it will cause them to break and eat their eggs on purpose. That’s safety for your EGGS!
Now onto the coop…
So, the very last, last thing we did was put up a solar light that's motion activated so that anything that gets near the main door of the run, should be scared away.
Totally a precaution because even if something got in there during the night, the birds are locked up securely inside the coop. I just had to do it, though.
This is what the little coop looks like (below). It came with all the hardware cloth but we EXTRA stapled it everywhere and I put hardware cloth under it and secured it around every bottom rail, too. Me being a first time chicken mama was pretty tough on my husband. Lol. But he made it through it with me. AND they're around 22 weeks old now, so the littles should be laying soon. In the mean-time, a friend from church actually gave us two 18 month old BRs so we could have eggs right away! This little coop and run came in handy while integrating those girls with my babies. Just shut that pop door between until they got used to each other.
Well, that's our story! I hope you enjoyed reading this or maybe learned something that you didn't know already. The entire thing was a HUGE lesson for both of us!
