- Mar 30, 2013
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A few questions for final coop prep!
My baby chicks should be arriving in about a week and a half and will be in my next door neighbor's brooder as we do not have a brooder but do have a very curious toddler and michievous pair of cats. They'll obviously stay in the brooder for three weeks (according to neighbor) so we have about one month to get everything squared away with our pen/coop/etc.
To give some background:
We rent and so the more portable the better. In fact, our landlords are our neighbors who offered to let us use their brooder. They have goats, chickens, pigs, rabbits and more and are excited about our chicken keeping. The pen is one they built a long time ago to (unsuccessfully) house goats. It needs some final cleaning and patching in addition to covering. We originally were going with 30 birds, but due to second coop not happening, we are sticking with the 15 birds our borrowed coop (again, provided by landlords) can hold (according to them, though I feel it's a bit small). Pen is 40 feet by 15 and we intend on pasture raising chickens with a chicken tractor as the landlord's birds have full free range of our yard and theirs, which are connected. We are concerned about disease, salmonella and bugs because their birds roam the neighborhood freely, even a dozen houses away, getting the neighbors REALLY angry (and I don't blame them. I feel not fixing their pen is not really fair to others and a problem when they have over 40 birds).
Q1: Aside from normal risks like lice, fleas and other pestilence, in addition to salmonella, what other risks are there to us from their birds roaming freely every which way with no supervision or control? (I'm already convinced that the "mystery" bites I got when we first moved in 5 months ago from being outside in the back yard for 30 seconds was flea bites being tracked around by their animals running loose all over, but landlord insists they don't have fleas/bugs/etc and it's our responsibility to get rid of bugs, but we know it isn't....) I haven't had any bites over the winter and have been outside cleaning the yard over the past few weeks in the warmer weather but it's not to say that bugs won't happen, come back, etc. I want to ensure the yard stays flea free as I've had the hellish experience before at another place I rented years ago.
We don't want any aggressive issues or escapees in our flock so we do NOT want ours coming into direct contact with their flock. Nothing personal, but we just don't believe in the way they care for their personal flock. They don't even clean regularly or handle the birds in the way we plan to handle ours (i.e. their kids are rough with them, throw them, don't feed them regularly, their coop is dirty, etc). We also plan on banding our birds on their legs with rubber chicken bands to keep track of them, raising them on organic feed so we can sell our extra eggs as organic GMO free eggs (important for us), and taking EXTRA precaution with sanitizing everything as my husband and I are expecting another baby this summer and I am VERY cautious about health concerns. I have already started my vinegar-orange sanitizing mix, have acquired food-grade dichotimous earth, have scraped/aired coop thouroughly and researched everything on the planet for the past few months in preparation. I appreciate their letting us use things they have around, but am not convinced they take the best care of everything.
Q2: Will chickens be able to fly out of a pen that has a 4 foot 8 inch tall fence at the shortest side if their wings are clipped and they are still young?
Q3: What is the MOST cost effective, yet protective, precautionary covering we could use "just in case" hawks appear and to keep them in? Hex wiring is pretty pricey and we aren't convinced hawks are an issue as the ferral cats in the neighborhood are plentiful but don't really want to have the birds exposed or the possibility for them to run amok like our landlord's flock which has the whole neighborhood (of many chicken raisers) upset.
Q4: Can I pour the vinegar mix on the whole dirt flooring of our pen in addition to the flooring of the coop? The purpose is for my peace of mind knowing it's as clean as possible. Shoes worn out in the pen will also not come in. Additionally, after it's been sanitized I want to cover the dirt with something as I don't want mud. What can be used? Pine shavings seem expensive to cover 600 square feet....
Q5: We're using the deep litter method. We have plenty of pine needles. Can these easily be used in conjunction with shaved pine litter and shredded newspaper?
Thanks for your input and advice!
My baby chicks should be arriving in about a week and a half and will be in my next door neighbor's brooder as we do not have a brooder but do have a very curious toddler and michievous pair of cats. They'll obviously stay in the brooder for three weeks (according to neighbor) so we have about one month to get everything squared away with our pen/coop/etc.
To give some background:
We rent and so the more portable the better. In fact, our landlords are our neighbors who offered to let us use their brooder. They have goats, chickens, pigs, rabbits and more and are excited about our chicken keeping. The pen is one they built a long time ago to (unsuccessfully) house goats. It needs some final cleaning and patching in addition to covering. We originally were going with 30 birds, but due to second coop not happening, we are sticking with the 15 birds our borrowed coop (again, provided by landlords) can hold (according to them, though I feel it's a bit small). Pen is 40 feet by 15 and we intend on pasture raising chickens with a chicken tractor as the landlord's birds have full free range of our yard and theirs, which are connected. We are concerned about disease, salmonella and bugs because their birds roam the neighborhood freely, even a dozen houses away, getting the neighbors REALLY angry (and I don't blame them. I feel not fixing their pen is not really fair to others and a problem when they have over 40 birds).
Q1: Aside from normal risks like lice, fleas and other pestilence, in addition to salmonella, what other risks are there to us from their birds roaming freely every which way with no supervision or control? (I'm already convinced that the "mystery" bites I got when we first moved in 5 months ago from being outside in the back yard for 30 seconds was flea bites being tracked around by their animals running loose all over, but landlord insists they don't have fleas/bugs/etc and it's our responsibility to get rid of bugs, but we know it isn't....) I haven't had any bites over the winter and have been outside cleaning the yard over the past few weeks in the warmer weather but it's not to say that bugs won't happen, come back, etc. I want to ensure the yard stays flea free as I've had the hellish experience before at another place I rented years ago.
We don't want any aggressive issues or escapees in our flock so we do NOT want ours coming into direct contact with their flock. Nothing personal, but we just don't believe in the way they care for their personal flock. They don't even clean regularly or handle the birds in the way we plan to handle ours (i.e. their kids are rough with them, throw them, don't feed them regularly, their coop is dirty, etc). We also plan on banding our birds on their legs with rubber chicken bands to keep track of them, raising them on organic feed so we can sell our extra eggs as organic GMO free eggs (important for us), and taking EXTRA precaution with sanitizing everything as my husband and I are expecting another baby this summer and I am VERY cautious about health concerns. I have already started my vinegar-orange sanitizing mix, have acquired food-grade dichotimous earth, have scraped/aired coop thouroughly and researched everything on the planet for the past few months in preparation. I appreciate their letting us use things they have around, but am not convinced they take the best care of everything.
Q2: Will chickens be able to fly out of a pen that has a 4 foot 8 inch tall fence at the shortest side if their wings are clipped and they are still young?
Q3: What is the MOST cost effective, yet protective, precautionary covering we could use "just in case" hawks appear and to keep them in? Hex wiring is pretty pricey and we aren't convinced hawks are an issue as the ferral cats in the neighborhood are plentiful but don't really want to have the birds exposed or the possibility for them to run amok like our landlord's flock which has the whole neighborhood (of many chicken raisers) upset.
Q4: Can I pour the vinegar mix on the whole dirt flooring of our pen in addition to the flooring of the coop? The purpose is for my peace of mind knowing it's as clean as possible. Shoes worn out in the pen will also not come in. Additionally, after it's been sanitized I want to cover the dirt with something as I don't want mud. What can be used? Pine shavings seem expensive to cover 600 square feet....
Q5: We're using the deep litter method. We have plenty of pine needles. Can these easily be used in conjunction with shaved pine litter and shredded newspaper?
Thanks for your input and advice!
