Hello to all you lovely chicken lovers!
We are brand new to the chicken world and were beyond excited when we brought 13 hens home from our local co-op on Friday! We're getting along good except I'm afraid a couple won't make it. They just lay around without eating or drinking unless I help them and haven't grown like the others. From what I hear this is pretty normal? So sad and hard to watch them "suffer". Now I'm trying to decide if I should get a couple more or be content with 11.
I have a dust bath question. I was planning to make a dust bath in the corner of the run with log stumps like I've seen online but this morning I got to wondering if I could make their dust bath under their coop. It is raised 10 1/2" above the ground and the guy we bought the coop from said the chickens have no trouble getting under there. It is a couple inches taller than that once they get underneath with how the coop is built. We've also considered trying to raise it several inches more but haven't decided for sure.
Here is a picture of our coop. Could we make a dust bath underneath it?
We are brand new to the chicken world and were beyond excited when we brought 13 hens home from our local co-op on Friday! We're getting along good except I'm afraid a couple won't make it. They just lay around without eating or drinking unless I help them and haven't grown like the others. From what I hear this is pretty normal? So sad and hard to watch them "suffer". Now I'm trying to decide if I should get a couple more or be content with 11.
I have a dust bath question. I was planning to make a dust bath in the corner of the run with log stumps like I've seen online but this morning I got to wondering if I could make their dust bath under their coop. It is raised 10 1/2" above the ground and the guy we bought the coop from said the chickens have no trouble getting under there. It is a couple inches taller than that once they get underneath with how the coop is built. We've also considered trying to raise it several inches more but haven't decided for sure.
Here is a picture of our coop. Could we make a dust bath underneath it?