housing delima

BairleaFarm

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How to organize all these birds.

what ive got. my coop with 80 or so chickens. my goal 400 by the first snow. I need them for next years CSA. What i want chickens for meat, eggs, and breeding. I dont like the idea of putting birds in a run but its going to have to.

The plan - assuming i can get the finances worked out.

My coop - a grow out coop - free ranging
future mobile coop with a flock of blue/green egg layers
future mobile coop #2 with a flock of brown egg layers (maybe RIR and marans)
future mobile coop #3 unwanted roosters
If i keep the coops apart and have the specific breeds i want I guess i wouldn't have to cage anyone up. but i still want some other breeds like polish but they would need to be kept separate for breeding purposes.

I dont know maybe im rambling. Just alot to think about and try to plan.
 
Wow, that sure is some dilemma! 80 birds already, and you want to more than quintuple the population?! That sounds like trigonomic chicken math to me. Sorry I can't help any more than to wish you the best of luck in this endeavor.
 
These books should help your research:

Egg Farming in California
The Dollar Hen
Open-Air Poultry Houses

I obtained my PDF copies from Archive.org
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Cornell Small Farms Youtube Channel has great videos for your research also:
 
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Good luck with your endeavor. We try to keep our flock to around 100 birds give or take a few. We have 4 coops of which 3 are divided into sections. We have some with next boxes and some without. We are getting ready to build another coop. We have our birds separated by breeds. We do breed our birds. We have Rhode Island Reds, Rhode Island Whites and Isa Browns, Buff Orpingtons and Delaware. We do do some experimental breeding also. We also have Ringneck Pheasants. 300 birds is going to be a lot of work. 100 birds is a lot of work. I have about 100 eggs in an incubator right now and will put 50 more in next week so when the chicks hatch I will have around 250 birds. We have an order for 50 BO chicks.
 
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I like the set up, it looks weak to me though, we have lots preditors. I wonder if it would still be as light if you put welded wire all around the outside? Or if there is another possible way to add more security? Plus I would love to know how the watering bucket works!
 

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