Brand new to chickens - learning as I go!!!

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Funnybones said:
I'm hoping I'll learn a lot from this site and the forums here. I know very little about chickens. I have been wanting to raise them for some time, but intimidated by it. I just have been worried about predators mostly. And doing everything right, of course. So we finally acquired 7 hens almost a year old. I'm not sure of their breeds, but 3 of them lay chocolate brown eggs (Copper Marans??), the other 4 lay green/blue eggs and have puffy cheeks. One is cream colored and the other 3 have varied shades of red/orange. They are all beautiful and have been easy so far. They are all laying almost every day. I can't believe it! I hate the coop we bought. It's supposed to house 10 regular sized chickens, but it seems crowded to me. There are 3 roosts and 8 nesting boxes. The roosts can fit 3 chickens each I guess, but it seems crowded. I probably clean the coop a little too much. I clean it every day. They eat bugs, their organic feed, and table scraps. We use a solar-powered electric fence at night after they're in their coop, to fight off any predators. We have bird netting on top, because of hawks. We dug over a foot under the coop all around with wire mesh curved under to stop any digging predators. I want to build a new coop soon - larger and one I can stand up in. We plan to start building it later this month. Because we are homesteading and gardening is keeping us VERY busy, I don't have time to build a new one yet. I don't have them free-ranging yet, because of the predators. We live in the woods in the mountains. We have every predator imaginable! My golden doodle has proven to be a very good caretaker watch dog. She does NOT threaten the ladies at all. She is very calm (yeah, a golden doodle) with them, the same way she is with baby kittens. It's amazing. I will be coming here often, asking tons of questions probably, but I thought I'd introduce myself.

I do have one question right now: What do you do with the chickens on a bad-weather, stormy day when the coop just seems so small to keep them in all day? I can use all the suggestions I can get.
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Welcome to BYC!! Either get/build a larger coop or just let them hide out from the rain! Chicken’ll take shelter from rain pretty much anywhere, but some also go out to eat worms and stuff and get wet anyway.
 
Welcome. You are doing the most important thing correctly - you care. Now, just like all of us, it is a matter of improving. I made the prefab mistake twice, thinking I would just get another to create more space. Now I have a 17x8x8 converted shed and there is plenty of space for me to sit in there with them and if necessary, they could be in there all day. However, they also have a 20x30 foot covered run. I started the cover with tarp but I didn't realize how much rain we would get. So now, I am going to use a carport with a galvanized steel top and hardware cloth all walls and extend for an apron. I am also going to put some RV gutters on the carport to shunt the water away. Like you, hawks are an issue for me. When I am home, my chickens get the run of the backyard. Like any crazy chicken lady would do, I netted my entire backyard with hawk netting. It looks ridiculous but it works.
 

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