Any pictures of where you keep your CX birds?

[stone_family3]

I've been keeping my 12 in the coop with the layer birds and have found some problems. So I'm considering making a coop just for them, I'm curious to see what coops you all have for yours.

My biggest problem is all the extra waste and they keep trying to eat my layer food and my layers keep trying to eat the meat bird food.

 

[jeepguy982001]

Its just a dog kennel a friend gave me with a tarp on top and one corner "shelter from the wind" and a old plastic dog house i had laying around. It works great so far.

 

[SIMZ]

Mine are in a simple "pen" in a garage made out of plastic fencing and cinder blocks with poles for posts. When I open the pen they can go outside to their outside run. With another batch we simply divided the coop in half and kept the meat birds on one side and layers on the other.

 

[WishboneDawn]

I also kept my 25 in dog pen last summer. W put hardware cloth around the bottom to keep the chicks in (they went outside at around 3-4 weeks) ad predators out. Then we just tarped it. During the day they free ranged on our lawn and at night we closed them up in the pen. We also only fed them a few times a day (no feed in the pen at night) so they were forced to free range and get some exercise. In the end we had relatively active and very sweet Cornish X's that were 6-8 lbs when butchered at 10 weeks.

 

[wsmoak]

These are Freedom Rangers, not CX, but here's my tractor:



It's about 5x9 feet inside and has lawnmower wheels on the back. Two people can move it easily with the 'handles' that stick out to the top right in the photo, or I can move it alone with the rope that's tied to both bottom front corners.

-Wendy

 

[stone_family3]

Very cool. Do you like the freedom rangers? I'm not totally in love with raising the Cornish Crosses and have been considering the freedom rangers.

These are Freedom Rangers, not CX, but here's my tractor:



It's about 5x9 feet inside and has lawnmower wheels on the back. Two people can move it easily with the part that sticks out to the top right in the photo, or I can move it alone with the rope that's tied to both bottom front corners.

-Wendy

 

[galanie]

Don't have a pic right now but I have a 4'x8' pvc framed tractor I use for them and do like wsmoak does. Mine only needs one to carry it but if I had predators they'd need more protection than the pvc frame gives. I anchor it with landscape timber spikes and rubber bungee cords.

I also have a wooden framed "thing" sort of like that with lawnmower wheels on boards so they can flip down and flip back up. I hate that thing but that's because of the way I did the top.

Either way, I urge you to tractor them. If you do that and move them every day you won't have a mess.

 

[stone_family3]

I wish I had more room I only have .38 acre lot. I guess If I make one out of pvc I can just Let them out and then tip it over on it's side daily to move it. I'm only doing about 12 at a time, so that would be great to have a place to put them during the day and I can cage them in the coop at night.

Don't have a pic right now but I have a 4'x8' pvc framed tractor I use for them and do like wsmoak does. Mine only needs one to carry it but if I had predators they'd need more protection than the pvc frame gives. I anchor it with landscape timber spikes and rubber bungee cords.
I also have a wooden framed "thing" sort of like that with lawnmower wheels on boards so they can flip down and flip back up. I hate that thing but that's because of the way I did the top.
Either way, I urge you to tractor them. If you do that and move them every day you won't have a mess.

 

[hydroswiftrob]

I keep mine (14) in my re-purposed trampoline and I never move it. Once every two weeks, I rake it out and throw some new shavings in it and toss the poopy shavings in my compost pile. It works really well and the smell is next to nothing.

 

[Beekissed]

Why not just feed a general flock ration to all your birds? Use deep litter with pine shavings and give your birds some probios to correct their bowel issues and their poop turns to normal chicken poop....no smell, no messy poops.