A Small City Garden Coop For Bantams
I live in a city in New Zealand. I have a small garden, and a small flock of egg laying bantams.
This is my coop 'The Banty Shanty'.
The girls are safely locked in when I am at work, and have the run of the garden when I am home.
Inside the Coop
These are...
I have a 3 year old layer with a crossed beak. She is the heaviest of my bantams and lays a large green egg every day. I have never had to trim her beak, I think because she free ranges and I often spread wild bird seed on the concrete path for them...natural sand paper. I do give her extra...
Try some baby vitamins in her water (the one without iron). When I took a suspected mareks to the vet, she said that it is always worth trying vitamins just in case that is all the problem is. Could she have been injured by a child handling her roughly? Hope she gets better soon.
I put mine in a container on a sunny window sill in my kitchen. They dry out very quickly, then I crush them down with a wooden spoon and put them in a container in the run. The girls help themselves. I usually top the container up every week.
Try some little cut up cubes of cheese. Call as you go out to them. The first few times toss the pieces of cheese on the ground one at a time in front of you. It will not take long before they are lining up to take it from your fingers.
My EE bantam (cochin X araucana), she crows in the morning! She gets up on the outside perch, opens her mouth, and lets it all out!! Not a very lady-like, or politically correct noise for a chick who lives in the city! Makes exactly the same sound as her late brother.
I toss a cup of my homemade scratch on the ground in the run every morning - wild bird seed, oats, wheat, corn, sunflower seeds etc. Plus I add greens every morning, cabbage, spinach, silver beet, grass, weeds etc, what ever is available.
Does it have to be a tractor? I started with a tractor, and very quickly changed to a small coop and run all enclosed. See my page to see what I have built. I do let the girls out to free range when I am home. I do not need to lock them in the house at night because the run part is secure. Every...