Coop/tractor/pen for meat chickens - ideas, please!

[kipper]

We are planning to raise some meat chickens this year, and we are looking for a good option for housing them. We have 3 acres, but there is very little flat space for a tractor - lots of small rolling hills, huckleberry bushes, stumps, trees, etc.

We can build a large pen, and have thought of having another one anyway. Peditors are a problem, coyotes are a real problem this year, plus the usual dogs, racoons, eagles, foxes, an even an occasional wayward black bear. Our regular coops are built like Fort Knox and the yards are tough as well.

Does anyone use a regular chicken house to put your meaties in at night? They sound like poop factories, so I can only imagine the clean up. I thought about a hoop house inside a fortified yard. Our weather is pretty mild, and they would be going outside in early June.

Oh, and rain/mud can be a problem here, it's always a possibility but least likely in summer.

Any ideas, advice, or jokes would be glady welcomed.

 

[jaku]

How about electric netting?

 

[scubaforlife]

It often seems like the CXs will go in and out of a house, but they just don't want to move. You have to encourage them. I raised 50 in a big coop a few years ago and it smelled bad. I would figure out a pasture pen that works for you, you could make the pen smaller, make a few of them, and have batches of birds in each. I am running mine right on my lawn, makes for great grass.

The other option, as Jaku suggests, is to put up an electrified net around the flock and move it every few days. I have the poultrynet from Premier and it is pretty easy to move, I have an eggmobile setup with it and I love it.

 

[kipper]

That's a consideration. We would still need to cover the top because of the Bald Eagles, they will swoop down and take large birds. They fly above our birds often, I think they are trying yo figure out how to get in.

Thanks for the idea, I hadn't thought about that.

 

[jaku]

Quote:
It would be worth it for me just to see a bald eagle do that! I have one that circles my house occasionally, and I'd LOVE to see him snatch one of my birds, but I'm sure if you had to deal with it all the time it wouldn't be as fun.