Encouraging exercise & sanitation (Getting 'em off the ground) = cotes

[calista]

Yashar, how much "teaching" was involved in getting your birds to discover and use each level?

I've only seen one other three-level coop idea on the Web, and the builder didn't indicate whether his birds took to using each level without intervention, and I'm curious as to your success with the idea.

http://www.brownstoner.com/forum/archives/carpentry/

(Scroll down the page.)

My experience with 40 years of raising chickens is that they hate change in their roosting environment and will resist your attempts to use a multi-level system. My Dad tried one when I was a teenager, and all 40-some hens refused to stay on the new higher roosts even when he put them up there by hand. Could it be some breeds are more adaptive than others?

 

[Yashar]

When they outgrew the one above, we build this one.

By this time they were pretty much used to getting up high to find what they needed.

A permanent feeding table and corner shelf were added later. The corner shelf was there to help the birds navigate to the roosting poles in the peak. In retrospect, a pole in place of the corner shelf would have been better because they would hange out there and make a mess.
Both shelves were covered with rubber roofing so we could spray them off once a week.

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With this group of Americanas, it was easy to encourage them to use the space provided.

We have had more of a challenge in getting some recent chicks to use the roosting poles. They were not raised in the brooder cote above. So they weren't used to using the vertical space. They are still pretty young though. I'm about to see about making a "training" roost for them. Something one or two feet off the floor that can be slowly raised up over the course of a few weeks. I think this will make them aware of the poles that are 5, 7,10, & 11 feet high. Check out the picture of the one I'm referring to below.

Notice how tall this breeder cote is.

 

[junglebird]

Yashar - that's a really brilliant training brooder. Thanks for sharing your work.

Uncanny. From an intuitive place, I've been imagining setting up the chicken's food and water over some kind of sand bed, or mat ... hadn't really worked out the details. Now I see this elevated feeding scheme ... brilliant!

Instinctively, I built my first coop like an aviary at the base of 2 large trees. I didn't design the roof very well, however, and abandoned it for the wet winter. My current coop, at the end of my hoophouse, has a similar feature of progressive roosts accessed by fly-hopping. All the chickens, including my Marans and my big Australorp rooster always roost as high as there are perches. They don't thud when landing, but they have over a foot of soft straw to land on.

I'd like to learn more about the difference between poop hammock cleanliness and deep litter cleanliness. I've been loving the deep litter method because it seems really clean, and is efficient. But, I should mention that my coop provides 13 sq ft of floor space per bird. Also, my climate is mild enough that the coop gets lots of fresh air, even in the winter, and the chickens spend everyday outside.

Resolution, have you written your piece on deep litter method yet? I've been making the assumption that the litter is a living system, kind of like our intestines, and that the healthy flora/fauna balance out the bad enough to make it a net positive healthy environment. But I've been learning a lot from your writings (thank you

), and would like to hear your thoughts. You also mentioned that when it comes to deep litter you recommend leaves over other materials. Why is that (I'm using straw)?

 

[mtullis]

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oh! that's brilliant!!

 

[MuckyPuppy]

I know this is an older post but I read it with interest. I have something similar in mind for our chicks when they are chickens but never thought about "training" the chicks to use high roosts. As far as chickens not living in trees and etc., I've never seen a chicken live in a tree but when I was a kid ours use to roost all the time in the trees on the edge of our woods and they were pretty tall trees with nothing they could have used to get up into them except for their wing power. These chickens were raised quite "wild" and roamed everywhere and only had a coop and run the first year that we got them. If my mom wanted a roo for the stew pot it wasn't as simple of going out to the hen house, grabbing a roo and chopping his head off. We had to wait until dusk for them to roost and then mom or dad shot one out of the tree.

 

[pawsplus]

Huh. I had no idea that I actually have a cote!

My building used to be a hunting blind (found it on Craigs list for $100!). It is 10 feet tall, 10 feet long, and 4 feet wide.

The roosts are the structural 2x4s, 7-8 feet up in the top of the building. I made a ladder to help them get up there and they always have preferred to roost up as high as possible, so there was no "training" involved, LOL. They never have any trouble getting down. Note: the ladder rungs are quite far apart so they have to work a little bit to go from rung to rung.

I don't have poop boards, mostly b/c, given the location of the roosts, I would be knocking my head on them and they would interfere w/ my ability to grab someone when I need to. I use exploded pine pellet bedding on the floor of the coop and pick the poop out of that every a.m. using a pitchfork with hardware cloth attached to it (i.e., kinda like a cat litter box) so there is usually very little feces in the coop.

I've always thought that not only is it good exercise for my girls to go up high, but it also makes them happier. In the "wild," the higher the bird goes the safer she is. And chickens know this and are likely to feel less stressed if they can roost high up.

More pix at my coop page.

 

[MuckyPuppy]

Pawsplus

Took a look at your BYC page and I like the way your cotoop turned out.

Our chickens never had any problems getting out of their high roosts (trees) either and they would have been landing on hard ground and rock filled driveway.

 

[Resolution]

When we have a close look at bird species that enjoy long life spans in nature (and thanks to genetics- sometimes in captivity), i.e. parrots, cranes, peafowl, green junglefowl. tragopans, swans, flamingos, penguins and etc. we quickly come to the conclusion that those species that use their wings most energetically-and not through stress mind you- as a regular course of existence and locomotion- live the longest. Of course ostriches and emus live forever too but those things are dinosaurs to begin with and this an opinionated theory not a hard truth. It's my belief that birds that regularly circulate the oxygen coursing through their air sacs -via extensive (consistent) use of their wings will live longer, healthier lives. That's long hand for- get those hens off the ground and keep them sleeping well above the dust layer at the bottom of the shelter. Windows towards the tops and poop hammocks are essential as well people. Keep up the great work!

 

[pawsplus]

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Why? If I clean up the poop out of the bedding every a.m. my birds aren't living in it, breathing it, or walking in it. ???

Why are windows necessary? Mine have ventilation towards the top but not actual windows. ?

 

[knjinnm]

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What a GREAT find!