I'm using this thread to tell my coop story so thanks for listening or reading. I planned on getting three chickens, all grown up, so I built a really cute, and I mean cute, little coop using cedar planks and caulk and furring strips. Total floor area is a little over 12 square feet, perfectly adequate for three chickens.
Well, there were no adult chickens available so after researching what was needed to raise chicks I went to our local ranch supply store and talked to the "animal welfare" expert about chickens. It was recommended that I get twice as many as I want because about half of them die. I should mention that they receive 500 - 36 hour old chicks twice a week during chick season so it made sense to me. After hesitating I bought five (5). Okay, thinks I - I'll just gut through the deaths. Then my neighbor, another chicken minded individual who has lost the number of the person he ordered six from and is a week overdue to pick them up decides to get six. So now there are 11 in a box in the front room. That was eight weeks ago and there are still 11 chicks (that's right - zero mortality) and the woman my neighbor ordered from found him and he has five three month old chicks - for a grand total of 16. He's convinced me to take in a couple of his and we're about to separate the flock just waiting for the little ones to get a little bigger.
The very long winded point of this is that my ultra - cute and effective little coop which would have been fine for three birds is woefully inadequate for seven besides being made out of cedar which I understand is a no - no. All eleven live in it at night despite being in a backyard in a closed run and when I let them out in the morning it's a stampede and they do laps around the run.
So now I have to build yet another coop, which makes me tired just thinking about it so I hope that I can do a quality job.
Thanks.
Mary
