hen excluder?

[carolinasculpture]

Hi! I have searched this forum and the web and came up empty, but I have trouble finding the right key words. Here is what I am trying to do, I am hopeful the experience pooled here can help me out.

We have a coop, about 10'x10' with an attached run, 50'x50' covered with netting. The chickens, one roo and 8 layers (ages 5-1 year old, full sized birds, leghorns, EE, BO, BR) have 24/7 access to the run and are never shut inside the coop. OK, each year we add about 3 pullets and eat about 3 hens. We raise the pullets in the living-room and as they get bigger they spend more and more time in their own little corner of the run, but still come in at night. Well, this year our little pullets have decided they want to fly up and over their little corner and join the big girls in the run, they are 6ish weeks old. The only problem I have with this is that they can't get back in to get to their water and food. If I leave the gate open, the big girls eat all their food and they can't reach the big girl's food. So what I would like to do is make a hen excluder of sorts and put the pullet food in a dog kennel or something with an opening big enough for the chicks to be able to go in and out, but that the hens can't fit through.

Does anyone know about how far apart the "bars" should be? Would appreciate any insight. Right now I am going out to try and measure a hen...wish me luck!

Thanks!

 

[sourland]

Check out some fencing at your local farm supply. Perhaps you can find something with a mesh that will exclude the adult birds while the pullets can still access their feed and water.

 

[carolinasculpture]

Hi! Well, I wenout to measure hens and as you can imagine, it didn't go so well. So I just stuck slats in the door hole that I thought looked good and then dropped some meal worms inside. The first time the leghorns got in, so I made the slats a little closer together then tried again. This time it worked out well. Then I put one of the pullets inside to see if she could get out. It worked! So now I just have to hope they can find it when they are hungry...and that the hens don't figure out how to defeat the zip-ties I used to hold the slats in place!
Thanks!

 

[sourland]

Well done! Necessity is the mother of invention.

 

[fiddlebanshee]

So how far apart did you end up putting the slats? i tried a similar setup last year but couldn't get it to work. My hens always managed to squeeze through.

 

[aart]

I was going to say, just keep changing the spacing until it works.

The term for that kind of feeding setup for other livestock is called a creep feeder, babies can get in but adults can't. Creep feed is also a type of feed.

...and there's few threads about them here......advanced search>titles only> creep feeder
ETA...not much on those threads.

 

[carolinasculpture]

Great, thanks! Now that I know what I am looking for I will definitely look that up!
This afternoon I will go down and measure the width between the slats, it is kinda tough to keep the slender leghorns out and still let the 6 week olds in. They have a little squeeze, but so far it hasn't seemed to faze them!

 

[fiddlebanshee]

Quote:
Yes, that's what my problem was as well. It's amazing how the adult hens can collapse their body and squeeze through if there is something they want at the other side.

 

[aart]

I think creep feeding is not well adapted to chickens unless the are less than about 8 weeks old because the adults are skinny under all those feathers.
The baby to adult size ratio just isn't there like other livestock.

 

[fiddlebanshee]

Quote: That was my conclusion as well after my failed experiment last year.