Bully Central

[Canadian Chickens]

no, they won't use the bottom, and if you lock them in there they will feel stressed. Chicken nature is to roost above. As you are in the north, this problem is going to get much worse. Because of the long nights of winter.

To get a happy flock, and reduce the tension in the flock you either need a bigger coop, or you need to reduce the number of your birds. Wishing they would all just be nice won't work.

This frequently happens to us all when we first get started. What seems to be more than enough room when they are chicks, as the birds grow, rapidly becomes not enough space.
And ugly behaviors start. Inexperienced people often are not even aware of the tension until feather picking and fighting occur.

Once I got a bad case of chicken math, more is better, and a predator helped me out. I was so upset at first, lost several birds. But almost immediately I noticed that my birds that I had left, were much more relaxed. It was fun to watch them again. I told a count, and that was the number of birds for that set up.

One can cheat on the numbers a little bit in the summer, adding chicks to the flock. You have long days, and chicks are tiny. But come the fall, the hard part of raising chickens needs to be done, you need to cull the flock to fit the set up for the long dark nights of winter.

Neither being raised together nor free range time will compensate for a too small coop in winter.

Mrs K
ps. I think you have more than enough run space, adding clutter and they should all get along. It is the coop space that is not sufficient. and in a winter storm, I think you are going to have a lot of problems.

Culling a few chickens would just mean selling a few head. I think you would be much happier with the results. They should be molting soon, and tight quarters will make for very crabby birds.

Thanks so much SueT.
This coop was a starter for us to see if we liked it.

We LOVE it!

Looks like the bigger coop is coming sooner than later! Seems they will not make another winter like this.

 

[Canadian Chickens]

The roost in the top section is 6' long.
The bottom section with the windows is new. There is ventilation on the other side and it does not seem to get hot in the summer... this makes me worry how the winter would go.
We have been placing the younger birds on the roost at night... so yes, maybe they cannot reach it... ummmm

 

[aart]

We have been placing the younger birds on the roost at night... so yes, maybe they cannot reach it... ummmm

Maybe put the divider at the other end,
so they don't have to jump over the floor door to get there?

 

[Canadian Chickens]

Are the nesting boxes allowed be added into the square footage per bird?

We obviously built too much space for nesting bins because they only lay in 2 of the 7 bins.

There is two separate door to the outside. One for top and one for the bottom. Still not a good idea to separate the flock?

 

[Mrs. K]

No I would not want to separate the flock, maybe only as a very short term basis. In my opinion separating birds cause more problems than it solves. And makes it so much harder, as they will keep trying to get together. You would think that they would be happier separated, but they won't be, unless you truly separate them into a totally different coop and space.

You really need to either reduce the flock or build bigger, or reduce the flock and add more when you do build bigger if you want the current problems to stop and not get worse. I know it sucks, and it is hard, but what you are doing now really is not working, and you are the only one who can change it, they are stuck with your decision.

Mrs K

 

[rosemarythyme]

Are the nesting boxes allowed be added into the square footage per bird?

Nest boxes don't count as usable sq ft as the birds should only be in them to lay. For example my coop is 6x10 but my boxes are fully internal and on the floor, so I'd subtract 4.5 sq ft from my usable floor space.

 

[Mrs. K]

Well if you knock out all of the bottom ones, and most of the top ones, it will give you some wiggle room but not probably enough for a long term solution.

 

[Canadian Chickens]

Hey Peeps! Just an update...
Thank you all very much for your help!
We added some diversions in the yard and changed the roosting situation inside the coop. We added two more roosting spots that T off the long roost.
All seems happy in our yard at the moment. We are in the works of building a greenhouse for the winter outside yard. Our original ladies never had an issue coming out all last winter (which I hear is weird), but it is nice to have a cleared area for them to frolic.
Thank you all again for the help and suggestions.