Does anyone have a hospital ward or old lady house?

[Jtaranc]

looking for ideas on set ups….

I have a barred rock who has had water belly for over a year, in the last few months she hasn’t needed to be drained but every once in a while she gets weak. I’ve had her in my house for months, she needs specialized care. She’s well enough to go back outside now but when I open the door she just comes back in.

Then I had a RIR everyone was picking on, she looked visibly ill. Brought her in, she had sour crop, spent a week inside. I’m running out of pet play pens and it got me thinking, does anyone have a coop for the older hens who maybe can’t run with the youngins anymore or have a hospital ward for isolating sick chickens? Seems especially important since the flock will normally try and kill a member who looks like they don’t feel well.

Pics are appreciated!

 

[Debbie292d]

We run around 50 or so chickens and most of the time nobody's sick but if there is an issue, we bring that one in and put them in our brooder.

For convalescing, we put them in a pen outdoors that has a shed attached as their "coop." We use this as a growout pen for younger ones too. This shed we found unfinished for $300.


We've got a few other pens. We got the fencing which is 4' high from Wayfare I believe, then reinforced it with 1/2" hardware cloth. For two other growout pens, we found used dog boxes or houses on FB Marketplace. In one of them, hubby built them a hutch. Here are a few examples.
This was a remodeled dog box. A dog box is a transport box for dogs built extremely heavyduty. Hubby tore it apart and made this. The front panel lifts up for cleaning. This is in a parrot aviary.



Hubby brought home an appliance crate. He made it into a mini-coop.




Then we got a few ducks so looked on Marketplace for a duck house. We found this very neat and huge doghouse. The roof lifts off.

 

[Papaye]

Hi.

I’m running out of pet play pens and it got me thinking, does anyone have a coop for the older hens who maybe can’t run with the youngins anymore or have a hospital ward for isolating sick chickens? Seems especially important since the flock will normally try and kill a member who looks like they don’t feel well.

It is important to have an "infirmary" for your birds!

I do have one for my chickens and ducks.
Several, in fact; but at least one that is always ready to receive patients.

All of these infirmaries are composed - at the minimum - of :
• a metal run - the smallest one among my infirmaries is around 8 square meters,
• a coop (Eglu Go) connected to the run,
• thick covers to shelter the birds - and the feeders and the waterers - from the elements.

I have even made the runs so I can reduce the space inside if needed, if ever I have a weakened bird that needs to be prevented from moving too much.

► When my "prepared" infirmary is not receiving patients - meaning : most of the time -, it shelters stray cats that want to stay warm and dry during the colder seasons here (and that do appear to prefer Eglu coops to the other shelters I bought specifically for them)...
So : it is always used either way.

Pics are appreciated!

I don't have them for the time being, sorry : I had to remove my old pictures from my computer to make space on it, and it is currently too dark to take outdoor photos where I live...

But my infirmaries are nothing exceptional : just metal runs, coops, and covers...
...perchs for some of them...
...and plasting gratings and stepping stones covering the ground of one of them, in case I have a bird that should not be allowed to scratch - or just to be in contact with - the ground.

(You won't need anything more.)

 

[BoundlessLove]

Same as @Debbie292d
We use one of our brooders.
When they are strong/well enough to go outside, we put them in a dog cage inside one of our coops.

 

[BoundlessLove]

Here is our brooder we use.
It’s probably 8x8 in size. I will try to find a pic of the whole brooder.

Of course, Broody Peggy in it.