drawing out coop...need some help

[goodolsurvival1]

I think the idea of a motion activated light would be useful.... not that i think that it would help scare away a predator, but you would know that something was gong on, and THAT would be very helpful.

As to your chicks.... often roosters are the slowest to feather in... so yep, that one might be a boy.

are they normally smaller too? Runt is not as long as the for sure hens. we were just going for all pullets for a few reasons, the eggs, and we didn't want to tick off neighbors cuz of a rooster as we don't have issues with neighbors minus the one nosey one across the road lol... but i see it this way if Runt is a roo it isn't too noisy right now about once a day different times it does but that is if the water or food is low or i think cuz of boredom being in the area they have to be in right now and not outside with way more room...

here is a pic of runt (this one is he/she literally turned to look at the phone when i took the pic)



and this one is of the tail feathers that aren't much longer now then they are in the pick and look like they are growing up like i said instead of out and getting bushy like the def hens... do rooster tail feathers usually come in and grow up instead of out? the pic is prob not the best to show what i mean about the tail feathers.

 

[goodolsurvival1]

are they normally smaller too? Runt is not as long as the for sure hens. we were just going for all pullets for a few reasons, the eggs, and we didn't want to tick off neighbors cuz of a rooster as we don't have issues with neighbors minus the one nosey one across the road lol... but i see it this way if Runt is a roo it isn't too noisy right now about once a day different times it does but that is if the water or food is low or i think cuz of boredom being in the area they have to be in right now and not outside with way more room...

here is a pic of runt (this one is he/she literally turned to look at the phone when i took the pic)



and this one is of the tail feathers that aren't much longer now then they are in the pick and look like they are growing up like i said instead of out and getting bushy like the def hens... do rooster tail feathers usually come in and grow up instead of out? the pic is prob not the best to show what i mean about the tail feathers.

if runt turns out to be a roo and we don't get complaints we are outside of city limits not exactly country but i know there are other chickens just haven't heard a roo so dont know if there are roos around... but if we get broody hens wed be able to get some hatchinlings instead of buying fresh flock every so many yrs and can just sell the extras...

next yr plan on adding some coturnix quail to our livestock list and will get an incubator then so could also then incubate some eggs if no hens go broody. (minus us pulling the eggs for us and some extras for family members who said they would buy our extras already).

 

[goodolsurvival1]

k, so we werent able to get enough pallets to make the chicken run before the place started to have the fire depart dispose of them. But we got enough to make some tractors. Anyways a premade chicken run was given to us that was plenty big enough for our 6 chickens and we can were still able to do an open air concept with that run and the shipping crate we got for free.

Anyways need some tips, how do you get the chickens to go into the box (aka chicken coop)? ours doesn't have a solid 4 sides, so I would think it wouldn't bother them, but they wont go in instead they nested outside in the run part tonight, they didn't even bother to roost in the outside part roosting bars. Is there anything I can do to get them to go in the coopish area? I did take them in there and get them to stay with me in there until one booked out and the others followed. Will they just go in there and roost and checkout the nesting box in a few days once they are use to this style of setup that is different from the dog kennel they were in inside our house?

with a chicken tractor is it better to have 2 and put 3 in each or is one that is a little over 6x3ft okay for 6 since they would only be in it as a tractor during the day if the weather is nice and we are out with them (don't want to take any chances since we will make the tractor light enough for me to just move if my husband is at work, so I want to make sure nothing gets to them and is able to flip the tractor). I don't know if this matters but one of our chickens from the "pullet run" is a rooster so we have 1 rooster and 5 hens our of the 6 we got that we thought would be all hens (we are the lucky 10% lol but hes a good gentle quiet rooster so it has worked out in favor so far.)