I have couple ideas/questions I wanted to bounce off you guys for some advice.
The first one is about fence height, do you think a buff orpington could fly over a 4 foot fence? My hubby wants to make our future chickens a fairly large pasture area in addition to a secure covered run. He figures if we let them in under the thick willows/poplar trees they'll be harder for a hawk to pick off. He also wants to put a wire field fence on the outside of the posts with chicken wire on the inside making a double fence. Would that help with predators we have a lot. Foxes, racoons, skunks, and coyotes are common around here. Wolves, bears, cougars, and lynx rarely come too close but there are some around. Then there are badgers, various weasel type critters, owls, hawks, ravens and the local free range dogs. Man... Everything likes to eat chicken eh... I'll have to go read up on predator control/prevention.
Next question; I want to build a couple broody pens underneath the roost and poop boards.
In the drawing I have 2 pens under the roost with access doors to make cleaning easier and 2 nest boxes in he middle. I was happy with this until I thought about the chicks in the top nestbox falling out... Bad right? Do other people have hens raising chicks higher than ground level? Should I give them each a ground level nest box or scrap the nest boxes and give them those big pails instead?
I kinda know I'm making things more complicated. They'd probably be happy with old granary just the way it is, but we're having fun trying to make them the "perfect" coop!
.
The first one is about fence height, do you think a buff orpington could fly over a 4 foot fence? My hubby wants to make our future chickens a fairly large pasture area in addition to a secure covered run. He figures if we let them in under the thick willows/poplar trees they'll be harder for a hawk to pick off. He also wants to put a wire field fence on the outside of the posts with chicken wire on the inside making a double fence. Would that help with predators we have a lot. Foxes, racoons, skunks, and coyotes are common around here. Wolves, bears, cougars, and lynx rarely come too close but there are some around. Then there are badgers, various weasel type critters, owls, hawks, ravens and the local free range dogs. Man... Everything likes to eat chicken eh... I'll have to go read up on predator control/prevention.
Next question; I want to build a couple broody pens underneath the roost and poop boards.
In the drawing I have 2 pens under the roost with access doors to make cleaning easier and 2 nest boxes in he middle. I was happy with this until I thought about the chicks in the top nestbox falling out... Bad right? Do other people have hens raising chicks higher than ground level? Should I give them each a ground level nest box or scrap the nest boxes and give them those big pails instead?
I kinda know I'm making things more complicated. They'd probably be happy with old granary just the way it is, but we're having fun trying to make them the "perfect" coop!
.
