Aloha from the Big Island!

[Michael OShay]

Oh well. We are south of the water station. My husband built our coop-something I do NOT recommend bc of cost. It came out to be almost $700 and it's nothing fancy. I ordered chicks from Meyers bc of the low minimum (5 chicks) for this time of year. I think it goes up in November to 15. So far I'm really happy with them. I just placed an order for 15 meat birds from Murray McMurray-thier minimum right now is 15. Too bad I didn't talk to you then, coulda combined an order!

I built the coop/runs in the picture below on the big island completely from recycled materials. Cost=zero. )

 

[Mauka]

I am totally all about that! My husband? Not so much. He wants new materials everytime.

 

[konachicks]

My other half said he'd build me one but man I'm a sucker for a cute little coop lol
Another question I was wondering... I'd wanted to let them out during the day. Is there training involved? I know I've heard it's ingrained in them to go back to the coop but wasn't sure what I needed to do. Don't want them running off lol

 

[Kelsie2290]

If you lock them in the coop for a couple of days / a week until they think of it as home, they will generally go back to it to lay eggs and at night. A lot of that does depend on the area they can roam in ... you can have problems eventually .... if you are going to really free range them and they have access to what chickens would consider nice nesting spots they will often make hidden nests ... or if there are roosting spots that they consider better than your coop (a lot of breeds like to roost in trees), you may have problems getting them back. If by run off you mean go where you don't want them, chickens will range pretty far, there is really no way to boundary train a chicken to where you want/ don't want it to go, you have to either fence them in or fence them out.

 

[roostersandhens]

 

[Mauka]

I

My other half said he'd build me one but man I'm a sucker for a cute little coop lol
Another question I was wondering... I'd wanted to let them out during the day. Is there training involved? I know I've heard it's ingrained in them to go back to the coop but wasn't sure what I needed to do. Don't want them running off lol

just recently let my girls out. I started in the evening and they instinctively went back into the coop. So far so good. I was very nervous!