- Mar 25, 2011
- 40
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We have a well-built turtle pen (made with hardware cloth inbetween 1X4's that are screwed to each other), and I've already gotten advice on the apron around it (inbetween the pen and the chainlink fence), but we're starting to build the chicken house inside the pen (on legs) and I have a couple of specific questions:
1) I'm in Boulder, CO, and we haven't gotten much snow/rain down here for a couple of years.
A) Do we dare just use the Virginia Creeper vines that are all over the pen roof as shade for the summer, or do we need to pull those off because they're poisonous to chickens? There's Virginia Creeper all along the back fence, too; will the chickens eat it and get sick? It's from our neighbor's yard, and is our 'privacy' fence, so there's no way it's coming down .
B) If we have a roof on the pen itself, and build up the henhouse to within an inch of the pen roof, do we need to put a roof on the hen house itself as well? Or will that just provide some of the much needed ventilation? The turtle pen is only tall enough for a child to stand up in (49 inches to the bottom of the 2x4 rafters), and we have 10 legs that are 15" long for both the nesting boxes and the hen house itself (so the chickens will be able to go underneath their house) but I figured that they might be spending parts of the winter inside the house itself -- would that give enough ventilation, too much, not enough? One of our sides (free) has a small rectangle hole (1"X3" maybe?) in it already, and I thought I might cut a similar one in the other side . . .
2) We'd planned on having our nesting box cabinet right inside the door -- which is on the south side of the pen -- do hens like to be toasty warm in their nesting boxes, or are we asking for trouble here, with them being too hot to lay eggs? We wanted it to be easy for us to gather eggs, but maybe we should put the nesting box underneath the hen house so it would stay cooler in the summer.
3) If we had a 'summer' plan for the nesting boxes (it's going to be a cabinet with the doors cut out), will they freak out if we move it inside the hen house for the winter? Assuming that they're going to lay some in the winter, anyway (which might not be the case . . ..)
THANKS FOR ANY INFORMATION -- this site is invaluable!
carroll