Family Coops for Clan Breeding... And more!

[Storybook Farm]

Hi All,

I've been keeping chickens for about three years and am now getting into serious breeding and selling peeps/eggs (next year). We decided to adopt a clan mating system, wherein we divide our 15 breeding hens and three breeding cocks into three "families" or "clans." Then, we rotate through new cockerels. This means that we won't have to import new blood (and its faults) for a long time, and can still maintain genetic diversity. (You can read all about this here, if the concept is new to you.)

The bottom line on all this is that we needed more chicken housing. Because I've been raising chickens and taking notes on what I wanted/needed/liked/disliked in chicken coops along the way, I had many ideas on what I wanted in new chicken housing for breeding.

Here were my criteria:

1. EASY for ME
2. Great for the birds: plenty of room, and access to foraging
3. Clean air for me while tending birds
4. As inexpensive as possible, but still achieving all of the above
5. Coops should be able to be moved, even be chicken tractors if needed
6. No need for electricity (for me) but ability to use it if needed (for others)

I am SO HAPPY with the hoop coop design that we came up with! The best thing about them is how easy they are for me to tend (see #1 above). I stand on this side and can fee, water, check for eggs, and open/close the pop door on the front of the coop without moving a foot! While we chose to make them stationary, it would be easy peasy to put wheels on the end with nesting boxes and use this design as a chicken tractor.

In fact, they hit all six points above, however, and I'll add a 7th that I didn't even see coming: my grandkids love to tend the chickens and remain clean while doing so!

We've been building and using them for over a month now. I wrote up a blog post with lots of details about them, complete with pictures, and am so tickled with them that I went to the trouble of writing up detailed plans on how to build your own. Let me know if you have any questions.

 

[aart]

Pretty slick!
Have they been thru a winter yet, or just new this summer?
Any problems with roosting in nests, as they are level with roosts?
Are your runs covered to keep birds where they belong, and predators out?
Any other predator deterrence around the perimeter of your 'Chicken Village'?

 

[Storybook Farm]

These are just new this summer. I have plans to winterize them, though. I plan to staple feed sacks (thatched ones, not shiny) and/or our leftover landscaping cloth, on the floor as freezing weather comes on, and dump in shavings and leaves to about 4" thick. That should both insulate and stop winter winds from gusting up under the coop. Then, we'll also be covering the feed/water station with a flap of either feed sacks or leftover clear vinyl for the same reason. I think they'll be pretty warm and toasty in there, especially with the clear vinyl side panel that will let sunlight in to warm the coop in the days.

The hens do roost in there at night, but so do the ones in our coop where roosts are away from nesting boxes. I don't mind flicking poops out of them each morning with a child's sand shovel. My birds are still juvies (not laying yet). I was thinking that I might fashion some wire barriers that would be easy to put in at night to train them to not go in (and take them out when I opened the pop door each morning), but then again, I'm not sure it's worth it. I've had four different coop/roost/box arrangements for my laying flocks and some hens always seem to choose to roost in the boxes.

Our runs are not covered. So far, our birds don't fly over the fences. The runs are 8' wide by 24' long, and the fencing is 4' high, so it's hard for them to get a running start. Besides, they spend a lot of time hanging out under the coop in the shade. (That may change in the fall.) Since these are breeding hens and not show birds, I'll clip one side of their flight feathers if it gets to be a problem.

We don't have aerial predator issues here. We have crows that mob hawks and bald eagles, keeping them away for the most part. Again, because the space under the coop is available to them, they could always run for cover if a hawk threatened (and they saw it). In the 3 years I've kept chickens here, no losses among my free rangers from aerial predators (knocking wood as I write). We have had both foxes and 'coons, but they are night prowlers and the birds are safely tucked in at nights, so the runs don't need protection. I think that most coons or foxes would try to get at the birds from the sides of the coop, hence the poultry netting on the sides that is securely laced with wire to metal conduit hoops. The structure that results is amazingly rigid. Poultry netting has successfully kept both of these kinds of predators out for the last 3 years here. The only birds they've gotten have been free rangers that didn't make it into the safety of the coop at night, or who got grabbed through larger wires (2" X 4" garden wire, which we unwisely used at first around one of our runs).

These are great questions; thanks!