Hi!! New chickens.. and I haven’t a clue lol

[Rldad1]

Welcome to BYC. You might want to put where you are in your profile as it might help when you are asking questions. People on this site are great.

 

[drumstick diva]

Welcome to Backyard Chickens.

 

[Starburst]

Hi, and welcome to BYC! So excited you joined!
Make yourself at home in this amazing community!
Great job on remodeling that playhouse into a coop. It's looking great!

 

[chrissynemetz]

Welcome to BYC! I wouldn't use chicken wire for anything, it's way too easy for most predators to rip right through. I agree with @rjohns39 hardware cloth is much safer.

 

[Christal075]

Here is their tiny little home!!

 

[grayjay11o]

How many chickens do you have and what breeds?

 

[Malquid]

Hi and welcome to BYC. Here are some helpful links:

• Great go-to resource - Articles
• How to start a new thread
• Find other BYC members nearby using the links in my signature, below (turn your phone to landscape to see them).

Best wishes

Pork Pie

That’s great info

 

[ChocolateMouse]

So your coop, the inside area, is 40" x 20". 5.5sqft for the coop, the run is 70"x20" which is 9.7sqft.

A common rule of thumb for a standard sized bird is 4sqft per bird in the coop. 10sqft in the run. Minimum. So you can see where I'm going with this on how many birds you can keep in there...

Coops often calculate their "maximum bird capacity" based on LEGAL requirements, which are the legal minimum for CAFO farms, usually 1.5sqft per bird. These are the sizes used in huge battery farms where the birds live at most 18 months before becoming campbells chicken noodle soup. You can't REALLY keep chickens that way. Not if you want healthy, happy animals.

 

[Christal075]

From floor to peak it’s 5 ft high width is 4 feet depth is 3.5 ft. I can put a huge covered run around it

 

[Christal075]

What is your climate like? Heating for chickens is very dangerous, and unless you get below -10 in the winter I would not provide heating.
Roosts go higher than the nest boxes to keep the chickens from sleeping in the nest boxes.

No floor is OK, as long as you have a good thick litter on the floor.

Because your play house is 3.5x4 I would try to make the nest boxes external if you could.

I live in Michigan. It can get cold. But I do have a solar light bulb? I can figure out how to Put the nesting boxes outside in fact as I’m looking at it I think it’s definitely possible here’s a picture of what I’m thinking. So I would basically just put a box the width of that shelf coming out of the “window area“ where the little fake grill is, box that in with a hinge door? Will one nesting box be good or do I need 2? I can do it on the other side as well? and if I put it there then the box would be 20 inches off the ground... Well I need to put a ladder going up to the nesting box in order for them to get to it?