British chicken coop question

[Ali James]

Since I'm on a roll here and getting all this interpretation of what I see on TV can I ask a gardening question too?

Every time Monty Don opens a bag of something he calls it "compost". Is there really all that commercially available compost in Britain?

To me compost means the richly organic stuff that Mother Nature and I collaborate on in the back corner of my backyard. It's dense and black and really kinda rich for plants all by itself. What comes from the nursery is "potting mix" or "seed starting mix" complete with vermiculite, etc. All in all, it's light stuff that will amend and refresh garden soil or get your tender new plants started.

We can buy compost but it's expensive and, frankly, sorta second rate or iffy stuff.

So my question is, is there really affordable compost readily available from commercial producers or do we have a bit of English English v American English going on here?

Compost as we know it here is readily available and not particularly expensive. There are tons of varieties marketed for different types of plant.

Most of the people I known who do any sort of container gardening - hanging baskets, decorative patio/decking pots etc - will buy bags of this compost from the garden centre of home-improvement store to use.

 

[Kris5902]

Hi, I'm in the UK (North Wales) and am currently researching building my first coop and run. Our local garden centres all sell these prefab things.

Where I am I have foxes and badgers, and I think a badger especially could break through an Eglu or similar in seconds. My parents have kept chickens here most of their lives and even though their run is open (just a fence to keep chickens in) they have only been visited by Mr Fox once in over 40 years - lucky I suspect.

Personally I plan to build my own but hope to make it look reasonably attractive as it's going to be quite a 'feature' in our garden.

about how big are you planning and how many chickens? Are you rural or semi urban? I love the attractive little backyard coops, but it seems the minimum space expectations are quite different between North America and Great Britain.

 

[Perris]

hello @woodworm ! welcome to BYC

 

[woodworm]

Thanks for the welcome - I've actually been hear 4 years but other stuff just got in the way!

Kris - my plan at the moment is a run / coop approx 18 feet x 6 feet (for both), I'm thinking something along the lines of the 'Chick Inn' or 'Old Homestead' styles posted on here. At the moment it's very much in the planning stage and will probably take us months to in a position to actually get hens.

Our plan is rehoming 6/8 ex-batts, probably via BHWT.