- Jan 18, 2010
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Our original coop plan was designed (at least, according to the designer!) for 8 hens and the hen house has 2 nest boxes originally.
We cut the run size down by a third but we left the henhouse dimensions the same (we figure, it will still give the birds plenty of room to run about and they'll always have shade and some protection from the elements that way).Now, the entire thing is about 6 and a half feet square, and the actual henhouse is about 3' high. My question, though, is about the henhouse itself.
This design calls for the next boxes to be actually inside the henhouse, which works for us, there's a door on the outside wall so you don't have to go into the actual house itself to get the eggs, which we can secure with a padlock, etc.
Would it be ok if we just put in one nesting box for three hens? The henhouse space itself is 6' by 3' by about 4ish feet high, and the nesting box size is (according to the plan) approx. 15"x12".
I want to find the happy medium between making sure that the hens have enough space, and helping them to keep themselves warm in the winter. Of course, we'll put in a heatlamp and so on when it gets *really* cold, but I also don't want to leave them with too much room, as opposed to too little.
Should we stick with the plan and go with 2 nesting boxes for 3 hens, or should we just build one?
Thoughts?
Whitewater (who discovered that last summer, for some unknown reason, I'd bought some hardcloth -- 2'x5' long . .. it's not a lot, but every little bit helps when you're trying to save $$! And I also found, in the rafters of our garage, two very long strips of OSB left there from a previous owner . . . yay! Now to figure out how to get them out of the rafters! LOL!)
We cut the run size down by a third but we left the henhouse dimensions the same (we figure, it will still give the birds plenty of room to run about and they'll always have shade and some protection from the elements that way).Now, the entire thing is about 6 and a half feet square, and the actual henhouse is about 3' high. My question, though, is about the henhouse itself.
This design calls for the next boxes to be actually inside the henhouse, which works for us, there's a door on the outside wall so you don't have to go into the actual house itself to get the eggs, which we can secure with a padlock, etc.
Would it be ok if we just put in one nesting box for three hens? The henhouse space itself is 6' by 3' by about 4ish feet high, and the nesting box size is (according to the plan) approx. 15"x12".
I want to find the happy medium between making sure that the hens have enough space, and helping them to keep themselves warm in the winter. Of course, we'll put in a heatlamp and so on when it gets *really* cold, but I also don't want to leave them with too much room, as opposed to too little.
Should we stick with the plan and go with 2 nesting boxes for 3 hens, or should we just build one?
Thoughts?
Whitewater (who discovered that last summer, for some unknown reason, I'd bought some hardcloth -- 2'x5' long . .. it's not a lot, but every little bit helps when you're trying to save $$! And I also found, in the rafters of our garage, two very long strips of OSB left there from a previous owner . . . yay! Now to figure out how to get them out of the rafters! LOL!)
