- Jul 3, 2012
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Hello all! I recently completed my chicken tractor and its been awesome! But has come with some unplanned complications.
One of the unplanned complications of building my own coop has come in the form of where to put the food and roost. The plan was (as you can see in the pictures) to have those 1x3's serve as their roosts on either side of the coop on the top floor. Then in the middle I would put food/water at what I assumed would be a good enough distance from the roosts to ensure they stay clean. The problem has been that the food and water take up so much space in the middle even the chickens in their current state (9-10 weeks) seem to find it difficult to get around the large containers to get from one side to the other, so they just stay on one side, reducing floor space dramatically. Since they are too small to be using the proper perches/roosts yet, this hasn't been much of a problem and I moved the water directly under one of the roosts, giving them more space.
Is it ok that I don't have a proper roost for them at this age? They had one in their brooder box, and they are currently using the lip of the top level, but they do not have a proper one just yet. I occasionally put them on the roost if they feel like trying to jump out of the box while I'm adding water or something, and I also realized that if they try to get down going forward they might have a problem. running face first into the containers. Will they find a way do you think to get up and down? or is it a really serious problem that I must fix?
While I am considering redesigning the roost/food/water layout does anyone have a good measurement for how far away food/water should be to avoid unwanted poo?
Thanks!
taz
One of the unplanned complications of building my own coop has come in the form of where to put the food and roost. The plan was (as you can see in the pictures) to have those 1x3's serve as their roosts on either side of the coop on the top floor. Then in the middle I would put food/water at what I assumed would be a good enough distance from the roosts to ensure they stay clean. The problem has been that the food and water take up so much space in the middle even the chickens in their current state (9-10 weeks) seem to find it difficult to get around the large containers to get from one side to the other, so they just stay on one side, reducing floor space dramatically. Since they are too small to be using the proper perches/roosts yet, this hasn't been much of a problem and I moved the water directly under one of the roosts, giving them more space.
Is it ok that I don't have a proper roost for them at this age? They had one in their brooder box, and they are currently using the lip of the top level, but they do not have a proper one just yet. I occasionally put them on the roost if they feel like trying to jump out of the box while I'm adding water or something, and I also realized that if they try to get down going forward they might have a problem. running face first into the containers. Will they find a way do you think to get up and down? or is it a really serious problem that I must fix?
While I am considering redesigning the roost/food/water layout does anyone have a good measurement for how far away food/water should be to avoid unwanted poo?
Thanks!
taz
