Coop vs. Run

[SoCal-ludic]

Thanks for the info. I have sand on the floor of entire coop. The area under the elevated sleeping box will be hard to access if any eggs are laid there. Did you ever have the problem, or maybe you had a way to access that area from outside.

 

[RachaelR32]

My sleeping area is 3' high so I can crawl under it if needed. But she never laid under there. My other 2 have just never laid - grrr.

 

[ffibyar]

I just used an old golf ball to get my girls going. This was my girls first egg that they gave use on 11-5-2015.

Really never had any trouble getting the girls to lay in their nesting box's. I looked for a picture I thought I had taken but, I put a burlap curtain in front of the opening and it worked. You just need to leave a little gap on each side so they can see what the area is but yet they can have a little privacy while they are laying. I think I probably read about doing it this way somewhere at this site.

Their coop and run are attached but I shut them in every night and let them free range every afternoon or evening when I can be out there with them. We live in the country and have a bunch of Hawks around us. Lost one girl to a Hawk and don't plan on having that happen again while I'm on duty.
We heard Coyotes last night. Obviously there are Coon, Skunks ( my dog reminds me about 1 time a year they are around ) and dogs and cats.

I'm very new at this but have done a ton of reading here at BYC and your questions, answer well, it's here somewhere.

If you can't find it ask!!! Good luck!

 

[aart]

Thanks for the info. I have sand on the floor of entire coop. The area under the elevated sleeping box will be hard to access if any eggs are laid there. Did you ever have the problem, or maybe you had a way to access that area from outside.

So now you understand the difference between 'coop' and 'run'.....
...let's look at the difference between 'nest' and 'roost'.

A roost is a pole or branch or piece of lumber (I like to use a 2x4) where they sleep.
They should not sleep in a nest....nests are for laying eggs and if they sleep in them, they will get dirty because they poop a lot at night.
The roost should be about a foot above the height of the nests, because they like to sleep up as high as possible.

 

[junebuggena]

So now you understand the difference between 'coop' and 'run'.....
...let's look at the difference between 'nest' and 'roost'.

A roost is a pole or branch or piece of lumber (I like to use a 2x4) where they sleep.
They should not sleep in a nest....nests are for laying eggs and if they sleep in them, they will get dirty because they poop a lot at night.
The roost should be about a foot above the height of the nests, because they like to sleep up as high as possible.

x2
You also mention that your whole chicken setup is inside a building. How bright is it inside that building? Chickens need a certain amount of light daily in order to produce eggs. Keeping them in a building instead of an outdoor run may mean that you need to keep it well lit to simulate daylight.
And it also brings up the issue of ventilation. Chicken housing needs a lot more ventilation than the average building will provide.

 

[Blooie]

Welcome to BYC! Oh, what a relief!! I am so glad that I'm not the only one who got all the terms and labels mixed up when I started this chicken adventure! I didn't know my right hand from a roost or my left hand from a coop! I always referred to my entire setup as "the coop". Fortunately there were a lot of very patient folks on here who managed to figure out what things I was referring to! I was glad of that, because I sure mangled what I was trying to ask by not using terms the more experienced folks were used to.

The coop is the shelter - the enclosed part of the setup. In the photo below, for me that's the red building. The run is the open-to-fresh-air fenced in part. The roosts are the bars that the chickens sit on to rest or sleep.

The gray thing in the lower left side of the coop is our pop door - it's their door in and out of the run.....I keep it open for them 24/7 so they can go from one part to the other at will. It's offset and they enter the run through that bit of a boxy looking thing because of how we had to set things up. We also let them out for a large portion of the day to wander the entire yard. It does take a little bit of training sometimes, but they soon learn that the coop is for sleeping and laying eggs...the run is for fresh air, food and water. (I keep my food and water out there rather than in the coop, but that's up to you) Now, even if they are free-ranging in the yard, they will still go back into the coop to lay. I'm lucky that way - sometimes they just find a convenient bush! At first I found eggs in the run, sometimes in the dust bath bin, sometimes just in the middle of the floor. I also had trouble with them sleeping in the nests - not a good idea unless you want poopy and sometimes broken eggs. I had to block the nest boxes off until they learned to sleep on the roost bars. When I found my first egg on the floor of the run, By then they were in the habit of going into the quieter, darker coop to sleep at night on the roosts, so I was able to open the nests up. I put fake eggs in them as others have advised. Worked like a charm. They don't even hesitate now to lay exactly where they are supposed to.

 

[SoCal-ludic]

Hi, love your avatar picture. Thks for the suggestions. I plan to have my roost quite high - maybe 4 to 5 ft. Can a chicken fly directly up that high?

 

[SoCal-ludic]

Thanks,

What do you use for a nest. What dimensions. Can you access the nest from outside the secure area?

 

[cafarmgirl]

So are your chickens going to have access to the outdoors and sunshine at all? If they are going to be confined in this 6 x 15 foot area at all times, that is very small for 36 birds once they are adults. The oft quoted so called minimum space requirements for chickens, which from experience I believe are vastly too small, are 4 square feet of floor space per bird in the coop and 10 per bird in the run. A 6x15 foot enclosure offers only 2 1/2 feet of floor space per bird. The more crowded they are the more likely you are to have pecking and other problems.

 

[SoCal-ludic]

You are totally correct about the too many chickens. I had to order 5 min of each breed that I wanted and I wanted 7 carefully selected varieties. After the first 3 to 4 weeks I will be looking to sell (or give away) maybe 25 birds. If you are planning a trip to California, and would like some, please let me know. Maybe your husband could build me a large chicken run while you are here.