BDutch's bantam flock & natural breeding projects #5 🪺 🪺 and #6

[MaryJanet]

Another benefit of having two coops: if I have a broody , I can close the broodies favourite laying nest. The other hens still have other laying nests to lay their eggs.

Katrientje is broody now. She keeps nagging (asking) to open the pop door to the nestboxes. Poor lady. Unfortunately for her I cant have more chickens.

I like the flexibility of multiple coop options too.

 

[BDutch]

Issues on the playhouse coop after 9 months.

The playhouse is not as sturdy as I thought. The wooden slats in the playhouse are loose slats in a framework. In the back panel there are gaps because the playhouse is not placed neatly level. Fixed it with hammering and a larger screw.
The small door broke. I got it out of the hinges to repair it. Easy fix, only a screw was missing.

4 of my 8 chickens like to sleep in the playhouse. There is another coop where the other 4 chickens prefer to sleep.

Last night I had another issue with the playhouse. The Chicken Cozy automatic pop door (CC-door) closed before it was time to roost . I had to reset recently bc it gave a failure message. Last evening it was a cloudy day and it closed too early. The hens were locked out. I opened the window for them, and soon after these 4 ladies all went in to roost.

Today’s plan is to clean the CC-door and reset/reinstall the moment it closes. Hope the weather is a bit better today.

We had a lot of rain yesterday which was a good thing bc we had a long period of wonderfully sunny and dry weather previously.

 

[LaFleche]

The Chicken Cozy automatic pop door (CC-door) closed before it was time to roost . I had to reset recently bc it gave a failure message. Last evening it was a cloudy day and it closed too early.

We had the same issue with our automatic coop doors and switched to a preset closing time to avoid the chickens being shut out of their coops.

Of course, we have to adjust twice throughout the year as it would stay open way too long in the winter, but we found it works better this way with our flocks.

 

[BDutch]

We had the same issue with our automatic coop doors and switched to a preset closing time to avoid the chickens being shut out of their coops.

Of course, we have to adjust twice throughout the year as it would stay open way too long in the winter, but we found it works better this way with our flocks.

I can adjust the moment it closes. Sensor setting is standard 6. Setting 1 closes/opens with less brightness, but I forgot how to use the buttons to set it to the right closing moment. In the manual are instructions how to adjust it.

From the manual: