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MrsSpruce

In the Brooder
May 28, 2025
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Hi! I’m a first time-chicken mama in Canada, and I’ve been appreciating all the questions and advice given on this forum! I have 10 three week old Cornish Giants in a brooder in the garage, looking forward to putting them outside next week since it’s so nice outside. My husband and I have 5 awesome young kids, whom we homeschool, and this chicken adventure has been very educational for all of us!

We live in a town where we are allowed to have some hens in a fully enclosed space.

My husband is very handy and he is building a coop from recycled materials, namely a sturdy metal swingset frame. We would like the option of moving them around the back part of our large lot, to graze, but the coop has become quite heavy, and hard to move, even with two wheels on it. Any tips on how to make this more do-able?

Also, this seems like a silly question, but do chickens always need to be ‘put away’ for night? Does it need to be a higher place, or can it be ground level?

Last question, over the swingset we have chicken wire over half, and dark plastic tarp over the other half. Is the tarp sufficient to keep the chickens inside? We don’t have predators here unless a stray cat or dog would be wandering by. I would be very surprised to see anything else, mostly just bunnies and a few deer very occasionally.

Thank you for having me here!

(I’ll try to take some coops pics this week if that would be helpful.)
 
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Hiya, and welcome to BYC! :frow

The vast majority of us have secure coops that the chickens go into at night and are locked in. Inside are roosts a few feet off the ground they'll sit on, or in our case of silkies, they sit on top of the nesting boxes. We have secure coops and lock the chickens up at night as that's when predators are more likely to find them and kill them. 1/2" HWC (hardware cloth) is the only fencing you should use as that keeps most everything out, whereas chicken wire won't. We also dig that down beneath the dirt about 12-18" or fold it outward, in an "L" and pile dirt and rocks or pavers on it. That prevents diggers from getting into your chickens.

Here's our Coop forum. I would peruse a few of these to get an idea of what you'll need. Some of these actually have directions of how to build them.

Here is another forum, for if you have questions while building a coop and/or run: https://www.backyardchickens.com/forums/coop-run-design-construction-maintenance.9/
 
MrsSpruce said:
Hi! I’m a first time-chicken mama in Canada, and I’ve been appreciating all the questions and advice given on this forum! I have 10 three week old Cornish Giants in a brooder in the garage, looking forward to putting them outside next week since it’s so nice outside. My husband and I have 5 awesome young kids, whom we homeschool, and this chicken adventure has been very educational for all of us!

We live in a town where we are allowed to have some hens in a fully enclosed space.

My husband is very handy and he is building a coop from recycled materials, namely a sturdy metal swingset frame. We would like the option of moving them around the back part of our large lot, to graze, but the coop has become quite heavy, and hard to move, even with two wheels on it. Any tips on how to make this more do-able?

Also, this seems like a silly question, but do chickens always need to be ‘put away’ for night? Does it need to be a higher place, or can it be ground level?

Last question, over the swingset we have chicken wire over half, and dark plastic tarp over the other half. Is the tarp sufficient to keep the chickens inside? We don’t have predators here unless a stray cat or dog would be wandering by. I would be very surprised to see anything else, mostly just bunnies and a few deer very occasionally.

Thank you for having me here!

(I’ll try to take some coops pics this week if that would be helpful.)
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Hello! Welcome to BYC!
 

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