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At 6 weeks the ducks were so messy I was ready to eat them all, at 12 weeks, the mess subsides and they are much more enjoyable.

I don't lose any to predators or local dogs. In fact, once I started just letting them free range and stopped trying to keep them in a secure pen I stopped having loses. as I always say, check all of your chickens, I'll bet anything you want that they are all birds.

2x4, maybe 4x4 if I'm being generous. It's a Woods coop with 3 roosts across the back and they huddle into one corner, across those three roosts.

If I was you, I wouldn't bother with "fluffing" the pine shavings. Just throw some scratch in it and let the chickens do that work for you. Another option, since you seem to live on a farm, is a let a pig in there every once in a while and they will completely turn the shavings over for you...

I agree that you have space for more. Especially since you free range them. I just built an 8x12 coop and am sorta kicking myself for it. I always free range my birds, I open the door in the morning and they come out and don't go back in until the sun goes down. They've got all that space...

I have these latches all over various coops and other cages and have never seen a Raccoon operate them. If they can operate these latches, I don't understand why they don't just open my back door and come in and help themselves to the food in the fridge.

With the thought that Raccoons can tear through most any wire and operate combination locks, I'm not sure that there is anything we can do to keep chickens safe...

@Howard E totally agree on the roost space. So many recommend 10-12" per bird and it's just not needed. Thanks for your thoughts.

Looking at the size of her coop and the number of birds she has, she'd get torn to shreds on here.

@Howard E that is exactly how I done the roosts in mine. Ripped 2x4 is by far the best solution I have found. Do you think 2 roosts are enough for the 25 birds?

Sorry, there will be a pop door toward the front. I don’t have it in there now as I only have the little gals in there and they don’t need out just yet.

It was just easier to have the screen on the outside and have the windows open in. They were cheap, so I didn’t fight it. We had incredibly hard rain last week and it didn’t get in it. We rarely have wind blowing the rain from a southeast direction. I put the west window further back, as Woods...

So, the Woods coop is all but done. I still need to trim it out, but I'm thinking of saving that for fall, just because it's so dang hot out now. It's 8x12 and will house roughly 30 birds. 28 chickens or so and probably 1 turkey. She's the sole survivor from this years hatch and I don't want...

The ducks do a pretty good job of wetting them down. I would think you would need to wet them some for the chickens.

I have always used the shavings, but just recently converted my ducks to the the horse pellets and they make a huge difference. I was considering giving up on the ducks before, but this stuff is amazing. I've went from needing to change the duck bedding every couple of days to every few weeks...

19 gauge wire, it's not as bullet proof as you've been led to believe.

Is fermented or wet feed ok for ducks? Yes, I know there is a difference, just curious about both. The ducks go through so much food, I'm just thinking through alternatives. At this point, I'm not sure they actually waste a lot, other than what ends up in the water.

Check all of your chickens, I'll bet they're all birds. I know mine are. This crazy stuff about having their waterer clean enough that you would drink out of it is just that, crazy. It's right up there with the idea that all of your birds will die if you don't use HWC or only have 3.99 square...

Two things, I'm not disagreeing with you, I use the 2x4 fencing on my runs and have chicken wire around the bottom to hold the babies in, once they are too big to get out I get rid of it. And I only use 4' fencing. On the gauge differences, my point was that most of the HWC that people are...

HWC from the big box stores is 19 gauge and the stuff on Amazon ranges from 19-24 gauge. Chicken wire from both will range from 19-20 gauge, so, it's not very different.