Getting Started...

[Juise]

Ohhh Chicken Lytle, you have made me reconsider how "okay" I really am with losing chickens to aerial predators. I was telling myself all the same kinds of things you say in the beginning of your blog post. I have no idea how we could cover.. I really want them to have a good amount of space, not just a run. We don't really have much more money to put these chickens than we have already spent of fencing, feed, food / water thingies / lights, etc. I am going to have to think hard on this, I guess.

As far as a coop goes, we are converting our old horse barn. Right now it has no door and there is no foundation, so we will be building a door, sealing up any gaps, and had been planning on digging around the inside to a foot deep and burying chicken wire so that it can't be dug into. But someone mentioned that chicken wire was practically useless against predators.. does this go for burying it to keep anyone from digging in?

 

[Chicken.Lytle]

Quote:
Yes, buried chicken wire is useless against burrowing predators. Chicken wire is good for separating chickens from things, as opposed to separating predators from chickens.

I put up a 50x50 poultry net. It was reasonably priced and has so far discouraged hawks. It is a little loose, so a foolhardy hawk could probably get to a chicken. Also, it would not stop anything that tried to bite through.

 

[Juise]

Ohhh that is not as expensive as I had feared, maybe we can swing that. Should I attach it to the perimeter fence, then? Or is having it overhead reasonable protection?

So this kind of wire mesh to bury around the barn walls? http://www.topmachinebiz.com/product/120574/Welded-Wire-Mesh.htm

 

[Chicken.Lytle]

Quote:
The wire looks about right. This is what I used for my fence (REDBRAND 60in x 100ft Non Climb Horse Fence 2in x 4in Opening from Lowes).

I attached the avian netting to the top of the fence rail with zip ties and lots of knotted loops of hay bale twine. The center is held up by PVC. You can see some of the building materials here.

 

[greatchicken]

I live in SW Michigan. We just got our first 30 chicks and love them. We lost 1 but the rest survived just fine. I must warn you about chicken math. I went from having 29 4 week old chicks to having 29 4 week old chicks and 11 day olds chicks and 7 day old bantam chicks.

I also have 20 hatching eggs in the bator. We only planed on 10 to 15. Now we have almost 50...

Good luck.

 

[Juise]

We're in SW Michigan, too. We are planning on having plenty of space both fenced in and in the barn to add to the flock, but wanted to start slow and go from there. I wonder how long it will take?

We'd been talking about a few chickens and when I said 6 my husband's eyes about popped out of his head, apparently he was thinking 2!

I said I really didn't see much difference between caring for 2 or 6 chickens and anyway the feed store doesn't sell less than 6 at a time, so I won there.

I hadn't realized, though, having grown up with lots of family having farms, just how little my dear husband knew about chickens, lol. Which was nothing at all. Once he started reading up on it all (when he realized I was for real serious, ...when I said I was picking them up in a week, ha!) he kept coming up to me to say things like, "Hey, did you know they will eat table scraps?!" "Did you know they will turn our compost!?" "Did you know they'll debug and fertilize our garden?" and so on and so on. I kept saying, "Yes, those are all reasons I want them!"

Next thing I knew he was talking about how with as much room we were getting together, we'd be able to have dozens!

Oh, I love him.

 

[Cloverleaf Farm]

Aww what a sweet man! LOL