Eglu owners please advise!

[mac_chooks]

MeanQueenNadine you wouldn't buy it again, is that what you mean?

I don't plan to move it around -- I'll put down wood chips and try to let them range in the fenced yard when possible. Was that the only problem?

Where do you keep the food and water bins?

Sounds scary that something tried to get to the choocks! Did it get inside the run and then just not inside the house?

 

[LindaN]

I have an Eglu. I'm in a similar situation as you: I'm in a large city, and I have very limited time, skills, and tools to build my own coop. My answers to your questions

1. Can you leave out the grub containers in the run 24/7 or will raccoons and other pest animals eat the feed? Do you/can you put them in the coop itself?

I don't leave the grub containers in the run 24/7. Although I feed the girls some sort of "treat" every day (like leftover bread, fruit peelings, etc.), I try to clean out all food remnants every night. I do not want to attract any kind of pests, and I know we have rats roaming our alleys.

I've never tried putting the containers in the coop itself. They are made to hang on the run wiring and I can't see how they would function on the inside of the coop, even if there was room for them. (And there is not!)

2. Do the chickens mind roosting so close to the ground? Any roosting issues?

Nope. Of course, I ordered mine as pullets from Eglu. They were raised in a hatchery so they likely spent their entire life (all 18 weeks of it

) on a hatchery floor. There are roosting bars on the inside of the Eglu, so they are not sitting directly on the "floor" of the Eglu.

3. How often do your chooks free range?

For their first 5 days with me, they never left the run. The instructions that came with the Eglu noted to do this, so I followed the advice. (I'm assuming it's to get them settled in and realizing that it is their new home.) Now my chooks are let out of their run nearly every day. There is at least one day a week that I don't get home until after dark, so they don't get let out then. They are fine.

Certainly they enjoy to free range the yard and stretch their wings, but they are having a much better life in their Eglu coop and run than they would in a commericial operation or hatchery. I also try to provide them with "diversions." The Eglu run design makes it easy to hang stuff from the top so they can "play." They seem to like it when I hang different kinds of greens (nasturtium, carrot tops, etc.) and secure it with a clip. I guess it's more like free ranging; I've noticed that they like to eat the leaves off of actual plants better than eating the leaves when served up off the plant.

I will have the same challenges as you in the winter. Of course, it will be much colder here in the winter, so they likely won't mind that they spend less time in the run.

4. What color and why?

Red, 'cause I wanted it to be very visible, even in the snow! And, there are many red accents in my house/garage trm so I thought it would match nicely.

One thing to note: I ordered the full run cover right away, and I'm very glad I did so. The partial run cover can't block out a lot of rain and sun. The week after my pullets arrived, we had a LOT of rain. It rained every day, and I was extremely glad of that full run cover.

Looking at many of the coops here, I do have "coop envy" (is there such a word?) and perhaps one day I will be able to get a wooden coop built. While I don't have the time, tools, etc. I likely have most of the supplies, since I "inherited" a lot of wood and other odds and ends in the loft of my garage when I bought the house several years ago. I have thought about hiring a handy man or carpenter to build a coop, but finding one and getting plans would take more of my precious time than I have to give right now.

And I didn't want to wait any longer to get chickens. I'm really enjoying them! They are quite amusing when roaming around, and are curious and personable. If I could just get the 2 dogs and 3 chickens to get along better, we'd have so much fun hanging around the back yard together! I'm sure I will only become more endeared with them when they start laying, too.​

 

[arlee453]

I have the Chic-N-Barn and attached yard. Ordered from critter-cages.com - the cheapest prices I found online. It came all the way from CA to NC in less than a week, and went together in just a little while with screwdriver. Even iwith the shipping of over $100 UPS, it still ended up cheaper than the eglu, and a lot more versatile.

I strongly considered the Eglu, but the price and the small size made me think that I'd be better off with the ChickNBarn. I figured I'd be able to expand the barn or incorporate it into another coop if needed, where as the eglu is pretty stand-alone. I did really want that green one though... love that shade of green!

Anyway, I really like the barn. It is very cute, and you could always paint it to match your house if you don't like the reddish stain. BUT if you can't let your hens out to free roam at all, then I'd suggest putting it up on a stand like the pics in the other post about the ChickNBarn, to give them more room to move around, or planning on adding a larger yard on or around the barn to give them more run space. The matching yard is quite small, and it is low.

I ended up with 8 chicks (instead of the 2-3 we were talking about at first) and so am already thinking about how to incorporate my exisiting ChickNBarn into another structure to have more room for the ladies. I am building now a framed pen that will be 6' high and 8' panels I can configure in a larger run for them...

These chickens are addicting - not only feeding my chicken fun, but feeding my need to have some sort of construction project to work on...

Susan

 

[Miss Sue]

A question for the Chicago Eglu owner,

do you give your chickens any food or water inside the Eglu at night?

I'm not using the supplied Grub/Glug food/water containers yet, and I put water (in a smalll container) and a little food in a bowl inside the coop at night and lock it up. I would rather not put anything in there at night since space is at a premium with 4 chickens, but I don't want them dehydrating.

I hope to let my chickens free-range when they're older. Right now, though, they seem happy enough in the Eglu and run.

All in all, I like the Eglu. It looks like a little chicken campsite to me! Mine is blue--because our house is.

Although the directions say you can put the run together in 20 minutes, it took me more like 2 hours. I just could not figure out the snaps for a long time. Then, finally, Eureka.

Susan T.

 

[silkiechicken]

Be warned about the free range experience. Earlier on the board there was an issue with hens getting loud and pacing back and fourth once they got to expect being let out of their run... and their run was something like 13 x 7 for 5 birds total.

 

[LindaN]

Mac_chooks, if you want to learn more about the Eglu from other owners, go to the Eglu Forums and request a guest password. It will work for a week and you can read through their posts to find out about what sorts of issues and questions people have had. You can also go to the UK Omlet Forum boards to see what they deal with over on the other side of the Atlantic.

Hi, Miss Sue! No, I don't give my girls any food or water at night, I just shut them up in the coop. They seem to do just fine, although they are usually quite eager to get out in the morning and get at that food!

Yesterday morning I was up extra early since I needed to be in the office early for a meeting. I went out to open their coop and put the food out at about 5:45 AM, just about the time the sun was coming up. They were not so fast to rush out of the coop at such an early hour yesterday! In fact, they seemed to be a bit confused by being roused so early!

I've been thinking about ways I may be able to add some water at least into the coop in the winter. If the chickens are in there a lot, their body heat alone may inhibit freezing of the water. I haven't figured that part out yet, though. I'll have to study the Eglu insides a bit more.

Where are you sitting the water? My 3 girls roost along the back wall at night (facing the wall, which seems kind of weird to me), so the only place I could sit any containers is on the ramp, which would make me concerned it could get tipped over if they move around during the night.

As for them "complaining" about not free-ranging all the time, I haven't experienced that. They definitely enjoy being out of the run, but they don't complain when they are in it.

I'm in agreement with you about setting up the run! I spent about 1 1/2 hours trying to do it on my own, and then gave up for the night. The next evening, I pulled it all apart and asked my husband to help me get it together. It took 2 of us 2 hours to construct the run panels. Removing and then replacing the coop cover was also not working easily for me. Husband had to help with that, too. It wasn't the weight of the coop cover so much as it was squeezing the thing together at the bottom so I could put the locking pin in place. Whew! I don't look forward to pulling it apart for a thorough cleaning!

 

[mac_chooks]

LindaN I looked at the Eglu forums but as guest cannot post questions.

The responses here have been great. Everything in the Bay Area is at least 3X of anywhere else (how else can we have $800K houses with 2bd
&1ba?) so thinking about mats and labor, not to mention time, and I'm going to go with the Eglu for 3 birds. I personally love the look of the thing and the ease of cleaning plastic is such a plus.

I'll need to get the space ready for the run, blocking off where it'll go and getting chips. The city requires that the coop be 30' from any dwelling, too. Thankfully we have that space.

 

[silkiechicken]

Here's a question from a non eglu-er, how is the ventilation in the plastic? Does it collect moisture and condensation? I raise too many chickens for that type of set up but was just curious about it. I was thinking the the eglu was like a small plastic shed, with plastic sheds not really being the best large coop environment.

 

[LindaN]

silkiechicken, the ventilation is great. I check inside the coop every couple of days (they're not laying yet, but hopefully soon, so I have to keep sneaking peeks at the nest box) and have never seen any condensation on the inside, even when our weather has been very hot, humid, and rainy (like it was most of the past 2 weeks). The Eglu has ventilation openings near the top, and there is a small gap near the back bottom that seems to allow air to circulate through without being drafty.

Other than the Eglu, the only other coop I was considering was the Henhaven from Egganic. The Henspa was too big for my needs (I only have 3 chooks) and besides, to get the Henspa delivered you need to have a semi-truck bring it to the point of delivery, which is not easily done in the the city. The Henhaven run, though, isn't as long as the one that comes with the Eglu, and the site noted that it is not recommended for places with cold winters.

I do worry about the winter, but all through the fall I will be thinking through ways to ensure the Eglu stays warm enough.

 

[Miss Sue]

I put the water in the back left (as you're facing the front of the coop). With any other place that I put it inside, the girls seemed to mistake it for the chicken outhouse. When they're a little older (mine are only about 9 wks. old), I think I'll try just closing them in without the water. Right now I use a smaller waterer, however--and not the Omlet Glug bowl.

I have not seen moisture condensation in my Eglu here. There are a series of holes above the door for ventilation. I think a little air comes in around the door, too, though it's quite secure.

For Eglu owners, how are you cleaning the wooden roosts? So far I've been letting mine dry in the sun and then dry-scrubbing them with a brush. (I should be wearing a mask--but I haven't--so that I don't breathe in in the dust.)

Susan