Hello from Arkansas

[CharH]

We are new to chickens. We just set up a small coup, 4-6 chickens. Purchased some straight run Easter Egger chicks, we got 7 incase of any failure to thrive incidents. They are now 5-6 days old, thriving so far. Fingers crossed.

We are here to learn, and find answers to some of our questions we may have.
The Hubby and I both work from home, he is a computer tech and works with major hospitals and various other large corps throughout the USA. He likes to build things. His Step Dad is a contractor and he worked with him in his younger years. My business I own is actually in Canada and we have a great manager that keeps everything going and afloat. We are in a good position to have chickens. I enjoy doing graphics, love the outdoors, and our family with 9 grandchildren.

It took as a while to figure out some of the basics and built a coop already and yes we have a hardwire cloth lid already for when they decide they need to try to escape for any adventures. Figuring out the last few things on it, to include what to put down atop this sb2 gravel, many have suggested sand. Our small 1.3 acre lot is bunch of rock (you can't dig without hitting tons of baseball to basketball size rock) and a whole bunch of clay so we knew we needed drainage or we would have a mucky mess after leveling the ground. We live in a small rural area, and have many master chicken folks in the neighborhood.
Throwing up a picture of the progress we have made on our small coop and the brooder box we have right at the moment. The hubs is already talking about an addition.
We'd like to free range but we have way too many dogs on the loose, racoons which he has trapped prior and taken for LONG boat rides down the lake to drop off on an island and... lots of hawks. He's talking now about doing a large hardwire cloth pen area? Our concern there is hawks. We don't have any solid plans as of yet. I guess those plans will come to fruition as we learn more.

I'll be on the lookout for more Arkansans.

Thanks for having me..
Char

 

[janiedoe]

It's a beautiful coop. It's hard to judge size, but I do think you need a bigger run. Also, you might lower the roosts a little. I believe the rule of thumb is, that they need 1'of space from the roost to the wall, for every foot of height ( from the floor) in order to jump down safely.

 

[triciayoung]

I agree with @janiedoe that you need a bigger run, or a chunnel.

 

[N F C]

Hi Char, you can find other members in Arkansas here on your state thread: Arkansas

Best wishes with the new flock!

 

[CharH]

I agree with @janiedoe that you need a bigger run, or a chunnel.

It's 5 x 8.. what size do you all recommend? AND the under the coop which is 32" by 5ft.

 

[Grammy60]

Hello. Char and welcome to BYC Thanks for joining us.

 

[CharH]

It's a beautiful coop. It's hard to judge size, but I do think you need a bigger run. Also, you might lower the roosts a little. I believe the rule of thumb is, that they need 1'of space from the roost to the wall, for every foot of height ( from the floor) in order to jump down safely.

The coop is 32x60 inches. We are going to put up a small ladder, just haven't got that far. Would that suffice? So for what we propose, 6 chickens another roost

 

[CharH]

Hi Char, you can find other members in Arkansas here on your state thread: Arkansas

Best wishes with the new flock!

Thank you!!

 

[TwoCrows]

Hello and welcome to BYC!

Generally chickens need 5 square feet per bird in the coop and 10 square feet per bird in the run. Chickens can turn cannibalistic if they feel cramped.

 

[CharH]

Hello and welcome to BYC!

Generally chickens need 5 square feet per bird in the coop and 10 square feet per bird in the run. Chickens can turn cannibalistic if they feed cramped.

So the coop we built is 13.75 square feet, way too small... guess we do need that addition, pronto. LOL